


Good Boy

by PoemJunkie



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Discussion of canon non-consensual sexual situations, F/M, M/M, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:03:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoemJunkie/pseuds/PoemJunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey Milkovich likes to be complimented in bed. It's a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Mickey got fucked he was fourteen. It was one of Iggy’s friends, over for the night. Mickey doesn’t remember his name. He’d been sixteen, bigger than Mickey by far, and Mickey had watched him under his eyelashes all through dinner and as he sat in the armchair watching the two older boys play video games on an X-Box that Joey had stolen from somewhere.

Mickey was barely through puberty, but he already knew what turned his crank. He masturbated constantly, and it wasn’t soft bodies and long hair and sweet scents that got him off. It was hard muscles and big bodies and being covered by someone bigger than he was.

Iggy’s friend noticed Mickey noticing him. But instead of making a smart comment, he just smirked at Mickey, his mouth curled up into a little shit eating grin. Mickey dropped his eyes and tried to focus on his microwave dinner, pretending as though he wasn’t interested.

Iggy got baked that night and passed out on the couch. His friend came to Mickey’s room.

Mickey had sat up in bed, looking at the guy, his hair stuck up and a pillow crease etched into his face. The guy didn’t say anything, just pushed Mickey down on the bed and climbed on top of him. Mickey’s cock jumped in his pants, and he had looked up, wide-eyed and frightened, unsure if he should be screaming foul, if this man was testing him, if Mickey would get hurt if he didn’t fight back. Another part just wanted it to happen so badly he almost didn’t care.

Mickey had a jar of Vaseline he kept within easy reach on his nightstand, and when the guy reached over and plucked it off the tabletop, Mickey’s heart started beating a crazy tattoo in his chest. He had seen enough porn to know how it worked between men. He had no illusions that the man above him would roll over and let Mickey top. Mickey was almost glad, because he wasn’t sure he actually had the guts to initiate anything.

The man ran his hand over Mickey’s skinny adolescent chest. “God,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking pale.”

Mickey could only nod.

“You done this before?” the man asked. Mickey shook his head. He didn’t consider lying. “You want to?” he asked. Mickey nodded. The man chuckled. “A quiet one, huh? I can deal with that.”

He dipped his fingers in the Vaseline, drawing out a good bit and got a good hold of Mickey’s cock. It was the first time it had been touched by anyone but himself, and he threw his head back, breathing deeply. The guy took advantage of his bared neck, kissing there, leaving little love bites and kiss marks. If Mickey had been in his right mind, he would have protested. But it felt good, knowing that someone wanted him, if only for the moment.

The guy threw off Mickey’s blanket, pulling down his pajama bottoms to get better access to his dick. Mickey was still growing, and his dick was too, but he had a nice bush of hair down there, and he knew he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

“You got a nice dick,” the guy commented. Mickey wanted to see the other guys dick, so he reached out and pulled at the drawstring on his sweatpants, untied the knot and pushed the pants down. The guy’s dick was bigger than Mickey’s. Kind of by a lot. Mickey wondered if it would hurt when he got fucked with it. He wanted to find out.

The guy chuckled at Mickey’s curious gaze locked on his crotch. It’s not like Mickey hadn’t seen dick before. He’d seen plenty of dick. He had four brothers and attended a public school with shitty locker rooms with no privacy stalls. He’d just never seen a dick and known that in short order, it was going to be inside of his ass.

He’d been getting progressively harder as the guy jerked him, almost lazily, and now that his pants are out of the way, Mickey could see that the guy wasn’t entirely disinterested in the process. He wasn’t hard enough to fuck Mickey, though, which was the ultimate end goal, so Mickey stole some of the Vaseline from the jar and reached for the guy’s cock.

It felt different, somehow, from jerking his own dick. The guy was bigger, shaped differently, pulling left where Mickey pulled right. It felt hotter than his own dick, somehow. But it was still familiar, the slide of the skin, the firm flesh beneath his palm.

“That’s good,” the guy breathed. “Keep doing that.”

Mickey could keep doing that for a good long while, he figured. He might even be able to jerk the guy until they both came and walk away from his first sexual encounter still a virgin in the technical sense of the word. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He lifted his hips subtly, letting his legs fall open to accommodate the guy better in between them. The guy laughed.

“So greedy,” he said, but pulled his slick hand away from Mickey’s cock and dipped it in between Mickey’s cheeks, probing for the hole there.

Mickey had fingered himself before, a few times. He was a gay teenager, of course he’d tried it. It hadn’t made him shiver in excitement this way, though, even though it had felt good.

The guy sank his first finger in, just dipped it in and out of Mickey’s body shallowly a few times. Mickey bit his lip and concentrated on not freaking out. It felt strange, but exciting at the same time. He wanted to open up and let this guy inside of his body, but he didn’t know exactly how to do it.

“Just relax,” the guy said. “I’ll go slow. Guys in porn always act like it hurts like a bitch, especially the first time, but it doesn’t have to. I’ll stretch you good, okay?”

Maybe it was bullshit, but Mickey did force his shoulders to relax, and let the tension ease out of his spine. The guy slid his finger the rest of the way in and Mickey sucked in a breath as he immediately pinpointed Mickey’s prostate. Mickey could never find it that quickly. His whole body quivered, and it was like something in his body just released, and when the guy drew out and pressed two slick fingers against his hole, they slid in easily.

The guy above him moaned, and pushed his face against Mickey’s neck. “God, would you look at you. You’re such a slut for it. Taking it like a God damned broken-in whore.”

Maybe it was meant to be hot, a little dirty talk in bed, but Mickey tensed, feeling a hot wash of shame creep up his chest and prickle his cheeks and his eyes. Despite the fingers rubbing gently at his prostate, he felt his erection start to flag.

The guy felt him tense, paused, looked at Mickey, assessing, before a crooked grin broke out across his face. “Doesn’t do it for you, huh?” he asked, a little ruefully.

Mickey shook his head. It wasn’t like he was proud of his sexuality. He’d wished 1,001 times that he could wake up and look at Karen Jackson’s boobs and get a woody like every other boy in his class. He just wasn’t wired that way. But he didn’t like being made to feel like a whore for liking what he liked, either.

“Okay, okay,” the guy soothed, bringing a hand to work Mickey’s dying erection. “No problem. You’re doing good for me, okay? You’re doing so good. You’re perfect right now.”

The flush is back, traveling more quickly up his body than the slow shameful creep of before. But his erection doesn’t dip. No one thinks that Mickey is good. Not even Mickey most of the time.

“There it is,” the guy said, leaning forward. “You’re the sweet type. You like being good for me, right?”

Mickey kind of does.

“Good boy,” the guy said, stroking his thigh. “Can you take three for me, sweetheart?”

Mickey nodded resolutely. He wanted to take three. He wanted to show him he could. “Okay, that’s great. I’m going to put three in you now, okay? Relax for me, perfect boy,” the guy crooned.

Mickey’s face flamed, because this was not the kind of shit that should turn him on, but it undeniably was.

Three fingers wasn’t much harder than two, Mickey found. His body felt limp and relaxed and ready.

“You take me so well. Going to take my cock, too? Bet it’ll feel like you were made for me, yeah?”

Mickey spread his legs, sick of the stretching, and wanting the sensation of a cock in his ass. He reached out with one leg, hooking the guy around the thigh and trying to pull him closer.

“Okay, I get it, I’m coming,” the guy said. He reached down for his sweatpants and fished in the pocket, pulling out a condom. He paused, looking seriously at Mickey. He held the condom up in front of Mickey’s face. “You don’t ever let anyone fuck you without one of these, got it? Steal some if you have to and carry them around with you. Yeah?”

Mickey wasn’t stupid. They gave that talk in the seventh grade. But he just nodded.

“Smart boy,” the guy praised. “Knew you were smart.”

No one has ever, in his life, called Mickey smart. He knew it was just a dumb thing to say in bed, knew that knowing to use a condom didn’t make him intelligent. It didn’t seem to matter. The words pooled like something warm in his belly, and it seemed like it had a direct line to his cock.

The guy slid on the condom. “Now, stay relaxed. Breathe out, okay?” he said, starting to push into Mickey’s body. This is it. This is how Mickey was losing his virginity. It was better than he thought it probably would be.

It felt like the guy’s dick would never end, just pushing slow and steady into Mickey, Mickey trying to be good and not tense, breathing out like he’s been told, until finally, the guy bottomed out, flush against Mickey’s ass. It felt strange, almost too full, Mickey thought, but he liked it too. It was a feeling he could get used to, and his eyes fluttered shut.

The guy started to move, and it was like Mickey can feel every vein in his dick, even through the condom, that’s how stretched he feels. The guy went slow, but couldn’t seem to catch a rhythm, and he only brushed by Mickey’s prostate enough to send little jolts of pleasure through him. It was really the words that were doing it for Mickey. Just endless streams of quiet murmurs about how pretty Mickey is, how smooth his skin is, how his body feels, how happy he’s making this guy. Mickey is an inexperienced virgin, so he can’t help but spill early, even though he barely touched his cock.

Mickey lay there, letting the guy finish. It felt different than before his orgasm. Mickey felt more sensitive, more wrung out and emotional. He didn’t show any of that though. He was gay, not a faggot.

The guy came with a low groan, staying seated inside Mickey for a moment, their breaths sounding loud in the small room, before pulling out and disposing of the condom.

The guy rolled over on his back, sighing in satisfaction. Mickey stared at the ceiling and wondered if he should feel differently now that he’s not a virgin. He didn’t feel very different.

“Not bad,” the guy said, and Mickey’s stomach sours a little at that. He didn’t want to be “not bad.” He wanted to be good. “You’re a little quiet in bed, though.”

“Fuck off,” Mickey said back, the first thing he’s said since the guy came into his room.

The guy just laughed, stood up and pulled on his boxers and shirt, ruffled Mickey’s hair briefly and wandered out of the room to go back to Iggy, leaving Mickey to feel alone and sort of unfulfilled despite having to reach for a dirty shirt to clean up his jizz.

He felt kind of hot with shame and a little self-loathing. Jesus, what kind of fairy was he that he wanted to be petted and praised like some kind of show poodle all the way through sex? What the fuck was wrong with him?

000000000000000

The first time Mickey has sex with a girl, it’s Angie Zago. Angie was fat, and the neighborhood slut, and was infamous for two things. First, she would have sex with anyone. Anyone at all. Fat, thin, ugly, good looking, virgins, whores, whatever.

Second, Angie was up for anything. She would indulge whatever stupid kinky shit you were into. Like to choke? Like to be choked? Tie people up? Be tied up? Angie would do it. And she doesn’t talk. No one knew from Angie who liked to choke and who liked to be tied up.

Mickey didn’t have any particular desire to sleep with Angie Zago, her being fat and a whore and a woman, but for his sixteenth birthday, his brothers took the decision out of his hands and got him very drunk and dropped him off at Angie’s door, because sixteen was definitely too old to still be a virgin.

Mickey would tell them that he’s not a virgin – that in addition to fucking one of Iggy’s friends at fourteen, he had also jerked off a few times with Roger Spikey. It was a shame that boy also liked to take it, because he had a monster dick Mickey would have loved to get in his ass.

Angie opened the door just as Joey and Iggy were hightailing it away from the house, laughing their asses off, leaving their little brother on the porch to try to explain himself.

“It’s his birthday!” Iggy called from the gate. “Treat him nice!”

Mickey looked at Angie, swaying a little and with big eyes. He had no idea what to do in this situation.

Angie looked at him and sighed. “Come on in, then,” she said. She left the door open and walked into the house, leading Mickey back to her bedroom and shut the door behind them. “How do you want to do this?” she asked. “I can turn the lights off if you want to do it in the dark.”

Mickey is miserable, because between the alcohol and the fact that Angie doesn’t have a dick, he probably won’t even be able to get it up, and a dark room isn’t really going to be able to hide that. “Whatever,” he muttered, and pulled off his shirt. Maybe if he thinks about Roger Spikey’s dick, he can manage.

Angie stripped off almost professionally, revealing her rolls of skin and softly rounded arms and thighs. Her breasts were large, with big, brown nipples that have stretched to cover most of the front of her breast. Mickey tried to concentrate on the fact that she was bigger than him. He liked that, he was pretty sure.

“You want to get right to it, or you want some warm up, first?” Angie asked.

Mickey wasn’t even sure what warm up entailed when there was a vagina involved. He must have looked particularly lost, because Angie offered, “I could blow you.”

Mickey looked at her face, covered in make-up, and her lips, sticky with lip gloss and imagined them around his dick. It doesn’t even twitch in his pants. It does, however, give him an idea.

Moving quickly, he pushed her back against the bed, pulling her legs apart. They fell open easily, Angie well used to this routine. Instead of mounting her, though, Mickey kneeled before her, tugging until her hips rested on the edge of the bed.

It’s his first real glimpse at a vagina, and Christ, how do straight men deal with this shit? It looked strange and alien, with dark folds of skin hiding her cunt from view. Her pubic hair is neatly clipped and shaved around the relevant areas, but it still does nothing for Mickey at all. But this way, his cock is hidden by the bed, and Angie won’t know that Mickey isn’t the least turned on by her cunt or the idea of fucking it. Hell, maybe he can convince her that he just gets really off on eating a girl out and they can skip the fucking all together.

He opened her with his fingers, stroking her walls, trying to hide the wince when she became wet at the brush of his fingers against the top of her cunt. Angie lifted her hips a little grunted in satisfaction as Mickey found her clit and pushed his thumb against it. It felt soft and spongy, and not unlike his own prostate, but it was still strange.

“Want me to do something for you?” Angie asked.

Mickey looked at her, confused. The whole point of this was to make Angie leave him alone so that he could get out of this situation without his sexuality becoming block gossip without actually having to stick his dick in a woman.

“Pull your hair, or dirty talk,” Angie clarified. “Whatever.”

That time Mickey couldn’t conceal his wince. Spikey liked to talk while they were jerking it. Mickey didn’t like that much. He didn’t call Mickey names, but it was a lot of bad-porno dialogue that made Mickey cringe.

“Dirty talk’s not really my thing,” he muttered.

“What do you like, then?” she asked.

Mickey had heard guys talk about the shit they did with Angie Zago. How she would let you slap her in the face, or spank her ass, or call you whatever you wanted to be called. Had heard from other guys that she would also do that to anyone who wanted it, though it was never the guys that wanted it telling those stories. In comparison, liking to be complimented in bed seemed tame, even a little lame, but Mickey still couldn’t say it.

“Just shut up,” he said, feeling trapped and miserable, and used the opportunity to put his face between her legs and use his mouth and tongue to get her off while he thought of trying to use his mouth on Roger Spikey’s monster dick and jerked himself furiously, hoping to get it over with.

At one point, Angie’s hand landed in his hair and gave a sharp, experimental pull. Mickey nearly pulled back from her cunt, he was so startled, and looked up with wide eyes. Angie’s eyes were on him, assessing, and then she switched tracks, running a soothing hand over his hair instead. Mickey felt some of the tension leave him as Angie stroked his hair and Mickey ate her out until he felt her spasming around his tongue.

Mickey spilled right after, eyes closed, imagining that the hand was bigger, with bonier fingers and stronger tendons, but still making that soothing motion through his hair.


	2. Chapter 2

Ian Gallagher was something of a surprise to Mickey. He didn’t anticipate the first time they had sex, silent and sweaty in Mickey’s bedroom, his father only feet away in the living room. Gallagher was surprisingly forward in bed, a take-charge kind of guy, although Mickey only barely lets him get away with it the first time.

Mickey was the initiator for the second go-round, and it was better than the first. In the back room of the Kash and Grab, no Terry there to put the edge of fear on the whole thing. Mickey could just focus on the fact that he was being fucked, by someone that obviously knew what they were doing.

After that, it became a pretty regular thing. Neither of them ever really said anything during sex, so Mickey doesn’t find it ideal or anything, but there were moments when it got to be pretty fucking close.

Gallagher fucked him while Mickey lay on his back on a table in the back room. He pushed Mickey’s leg up to his shoulder and went slow and deep, and his thumb brushed Mickey’s calf where his hand supported it.

Gallagher sometimes go this look when he fucked Mickey, like he can’t fucking believe this is happening. Like Mickey is the best thing that’s ever happened to him so far.

Sometimes when Gallagher is behind him, he presses his sweaty forehead hard against Mickey’s neck as he mouths Mickey’s nape and moans when he tastes the sweat gathered there.

Gallagher doesn’t say anything out loud, but Mickey’s not fucking stupid. He knows what it means. It’s almost as good as the real thing.

Or at least, Mickey thought so, until he got to experience the real thing first hand.

Most of the time when they fuck, it’s at the Kash and Grab, but not always. Gallagher liked to bitch about how he’s supposed to be working, and someone’s eventually going to notice if the store keeps closing so the two of them can get nasty in the back room. Plus, when they do it in the Kash and Grab, it always has to be quick and dirty, and Mickey doesn’t always like that.

There are few other options, though. Neither of them have small families, and there’s always someone around at both the Milkovich and Gallagher households. Almost being caught by Terry once is plenty enough for Mickey, and Ian seems to actually give a shit about what his family thinks of him, amazingly enough.

But there are places around where they hook up sometimes. Dirty places, mostly. Abandoned alleyways, park bushes. They’re a real fucking cliché.

Once, it’s on a mattress which is probably crawling with all manner of nasty things, abandoned under the L. Gallagher sneaks out to meet him in the middle of the night. Mickey walks out the door and gives a “fuck you” when Iggy, up late smoking pot and watching cartoons, asks where the fuck he’s going.

Fucking outdoors always feels risky to Mickey, no matter how abandoned the location. Under the L isn’t precisely abandoned. There’s the occasional wino and meth head that wanders down here in the dead of night. Fuck, it wouldn’t have been unheard of to stumble across Gallagher’s pissant father. But none of the people here care what goes on under the L. They all have blinders on.

Gallagher laid down a blanket on top of the filthy mattress, like Mickey is some kind of picky shit, and climbed on top of Mickey, both of them stripping down in the darkness. Ian’s skin is pale, interrupted by huge swathes of orange splotches, too connected to really be called freckles anymore. Mickey is paler.

“God,” Ian whispered, and there is sweat beading on his upper lip. Mickey wants to lick it away. “Your skin looks like it’s fucking reflecting the moonlight.”

It’s barely a compliment, Mickey thinks. It might even be an insult, in a way. It doesn’t even matter. He reacts like a fucking bitch in heat. But Gallagher is revving up at the same time. They’re teenage boys looking at naked bodies. They don’t need an excuse to get hard.

“You like that, Gallagher?” Mickey asked with a little breathless laugh. Mickey doesn’t like to talk during sex. He doesn’t like the way that it distracts him from the person above him. But God, if it will get Gallagher talking, saying those things that Mickey so fucking badly wants to hear, he’ll prompt the hell out him.

“Fuck, yeah,” Gallagher sighed. “You have such amazing skin.”

Mickey’s eyes fluttered closed. He spread his legs, invited Gallagher to settle between them. This felt different from that nameless friend of Iggy’s two years ago. Different from Angie’s gentle strokes in his hair. He can’t really pinpoint how it’s different, only that it is.

Almost tentatively, with one knee between Mickey’s spread thighs, Gallagher reached out and strokes a hand down Mickey’s chest, his left arm, skimming down his sides, like he’s searching for imperfections. Mickey tilted his chin up, looking at the tracks of the L above them and feeling his chest move under Gallagher’s hand.

“You’re so smooth,” Gallagher said. He said it tentatively, like he thought Mickey would go off on him for saying something so gay. Maybe another time, another place, that’s what would happen. But not here. Not now. Not when Gallagher is so obviously pleased with Mickey’s body.

Mickey opened his eyes and found Gallagher looking at his face intently. Waiting for something, maybe. Maybe waiting for Mickey to compliment him back.

There are fucking odes that Mickey Milkovich could write about Ian Gallagher. But they’re not words that he can say out loud. Not in the moment. Probably not ever.

Instead, he reached between them to jerk Gallagher to full hardness. Gallagher jerks like he wasn’t expecting that, as if that’s not what they’re here for. “Keep going,” Mickey grunted.

Gallagher is fucking Mickey’s fist and gives him a weird look. “What?”

“Jesus Christ, Gallagher, I know my hand’s there but do I have to lead you by the fuckin’ dick? Keep talking.” Mickey closed his eyes in shame. That wasn’t good. That wasn’t how he wanted to be for Ian, here in this moment.

Mickey thought for a long, long moment that he fucked it up, that things had gotten too weird for Gallagher and this was where the other boy stands up and goes home, and Mickey never sees him again except on the street, where they avoid eye contact. Instead, Gallagher leant down, rolling his hips, thrusted into Mickey’s hand, and put his mouth by Mickey’s ear.

“I could look at you forever, Mick. I love your muscles. I love that you’re strong, and that you could beat the shit out of me but you never do. You never would. I love how you move when I’m fucking you. I love how you bite your lips.”

Gallagher’s voice was low and his breath was moist on Mickey’s ear, and yes. This was what Mickey wanted. He shuddered under Ian, tried to keep the pathetic whimper in his throat where it belonged. He wished Gallagher was bigger, his voice deeper, more assured and less shaky.

“Can I fuck you now, Mickey? Will you let me do that? Let me take you, feel you so fucking hot and tight around me?”

Yes, Mickey wanted that.

Gallagher barely had to stretch him anymore, they do this so often. And Mickey knew all the tricks to make it easier for himself, and honestly, he liked it a little rough. In no time at all, Gallagher is in him and Mickey can feel the younger boy’s chest moving against his own, the start of pectorals rubbing against Mickey’s own chest. Mickey just closed his eyes and let it ride.

“C’mon, Mick, let me see those pretty eyes of yours,” said Gallagher, still too close to his ear. Mickey didn’t want to, but he opened them anyway. “Jesus, your face,” muttered Gallagher.

Mickey stayed looking at Gallagher for the rest of the time, moving his hips just enough to meet Gallagher’s thrusts until Gallagher went still above him, spilling into his condom. Mickey was close, but not quite there. Gallagher licked his hand and reached between them, jerking Mickey while he was soft inside him.

Mickey didn’t take his eyes off Gallagher. He kept looking at him, at how happy and complete he looked. How happy with Mickey. Mickey shuddered as his orgasm rolled through him like a slow, lazy wave, coming in spurts between their two bodies, getting spunk on them both.

Gallagher slipped out of him, seemed to hesitate over what to do with the condom before deciding one more really wouldn’t hurt anything and just tossing it in a random direction away from their mattress, before rolling onto his back next to Mickey so that they could stare up at the train tracks above them in silence.

“Is this something we need to talk about? Ian asked.

Mickey reached for his jeans, pulling out the ragged pack of cigarettes, which hadn’t been done any favors crushed in his pocket. He needed it if Ian was going to try to talk about this shit with him.

Mickey rolled on his back, crossing his naked legs and lit up, letting the cool air dry his sweat. “Nothing to talk about,” he muttered, getting the cigarette going before letting out a puff of smoke and scratching his eyebrow with his thumbnail.

“I think maybe there is,” said Gallagher, rolling on his side towards Mickey and propping himself up on an elbow, looking down at Mickey. “If you like that shit, why didn’t you say something. Shit Mickey, I could talk about you all day. That’s not a problem. I just thought you might beat the shit out of me if I tried it.”

Mickey shrugged roughly. “Sometimes I like to hear shit in bed, Gallagher. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Gallagher reached over and closed his hand around Mickey’s arm. His fingers were long and bony, a man’s hand. Gallagher was on the edge of a growth spurt. His thumb rubbed soft circles into Mickey’s arm, and Mickey started at it with half-lidded eyes. He should probably rip Gallagher’s arm off and beat him with it, but he was still floating in a pleasant headspace and couldn’t be bothered.

“I mean it when I say it, Mickey,” said Gallagher, his eyes so fucking earnest that Mickey wanted to stab himself in the face. This was what he got for fucking a stupid teenager.

“C’mon,” Mickey scoffed, pulling his cigarette away from his mouth abruptly. “We have mirrors in the Milkovich house too, Gallagher.”

Gallagher’s eyebrows snapped together, creasing the spot of skin between them. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mickey flicked his fingers in the vague direction of his own face. “I know what I fucking look like, Gallagher. I know I’m fucking dirty. I know I fucking smell like shit. I’m not blind.” Mickey grabbed Gallagher’s bony wrist where it was still attached to his arm and drew it to his mouth, taking two of Gallagher’s fingers and sucking them in, swirling his tongue around the thick knuckles, getting them wet. He let them go with a scrape of his teeth on the skin and a nip at the tips. “It’s okay. I make up for it with other talents,” he smirked.

Gallagher’s pupils were dilated, but he didn’t look sufficiently distracted for Mickey’s taste.

“Not that I don’t have very specific interest in those talents, Mickey,” said Gallagher roughly. “But you’re plenty hot.”

He took his wet fingers and ran them down Mickey’s dirty arm, leaving a thin trail of skin slightly less dirty. “It’s just dirt, Mick. It even washes off if you’re so inclined.”

“Okay Firecrotch,” Mickey said agreeably. Then he slid down Gallagher’s body, towards his crotch and took Gallagher’s dick in his mouth.

“Ohh…” Gallagher groaned weakly, his limp cock starting to stir in Mickey’s mouth. That was kind of interesting. Gallagher’s hands went into Mickey’s greasy hair, not pulling, just there, and Mickey closed his eyes, perfectly content.

So of course Gallagher has to fucking ruin it.


	3. Chapter 3

Mickey didn’t really want it to be a thing. Or, he did, but he didn’t want to have to talk about it, for Christ’s sakes. But of course, Gallagher was a fucking pussy, so that wasn’t how it went down.

Instead, the next time that Mickey walked into the Kash and Grab for a fuck, Gallagher had obviously been doing some thinking about Mickey’s in-bed thing.

When Mickey stared down Darren Brown’s two younger brothers until they decided they didn’t need their weekly fix of penny candy that bad and left the store so Ian could flip the “Back in 15 minutes” sign, Gallagher led Mickey to the back with a weirdly determined look on his face.

Whatever, Mickey didn’t really care as long as Gallagher got in him pretty soon. It had been days since they’d fucked, and Mickey just wanted to get down to the business of getting Gallagher’s dick in his ass or mouth, or maybe both. But not in that order, probably.

The freezer was fucking cold, Mickey thought, as he stripped off his pants and took down his underwear. He and Gallagher really needed to figure out a better situation for their fucking needs. Gallagher was unzipping too, eyes fixed on Mickey.

“The fuck’s the matter with you?” Mickey grunted at him.

“Nothin’,” Gallagher mumbled, but he didn’t take his eyes off Mickey. It made Mickey feel a little squirmy. He cracked his neck and turned his back to Gallagher, ready to grab the shelving so that the redhead could get behind him and get this thing started. No sooner did he turn, though, than he felt Gallagher’s strong fingers wrap around his hips and spin him so that they were face to face.

Gallagher was up in his space. Mickey felt strangely vulnerable with his pants off and Gallagher still fully dressed up against him. Mickey grunted at the unexpected treatment. “The fuck, Gallagher?”

“I want you looking at me today.”

Mickey paused, looking at Gallagher. The other boy had never really expressed a preference for how they fucked before. And if Mickey had been pressed, he would have guessed that Gallagher probably liked front-to-back best. That was the way they did it most often. Gallagher seemed to like bending him over and resting his hand on Mickey’s back, or his neck, sometimes, while he drove into him from behind.

Mickey opened his mouth to ask why, then figured out he was questioning sex with Firecrotch, and shrugged, shuffling to the metal table they used when they wanted to do it this way. “Whatever floats your boat, man.” He hopped up on the table, shivering at the cold feeling of it under his ass. Fuck, they really needed to find a better place to fuck.

Ian slid in front of him, putting his hands on Mickey’s knees and sliding them up to his thighs, skin warm in the cold air. He leaned forward, eyes on Mickey’s. Mickey tried to flick his eyes away, because this moment was getting a little too gay for his tastes, when Gallagher said it.

“Good boy.”

Mickey’s eyes snapped back to Gallagher’s, and he felt a surge of panic and fury. How dare this kid, with his stupid puppy face and floppy hair, presume to make fun of a fucking Milkovich. But Gallagher didn’t look mocking. He looked a mix of apprehensive, terrified and determined. Also like he was probably holding his breath.

Mickey narrowed his eyes at Gallagher, but the other boy lifted his chin, stubbornly, and didn’t back down an inch. Slowly, Mickey leaned back on his elbows, then all the way to the surface of the table, and spread his legs.

Gallagher’s eyes lit up, and Mickey felt himself flushing despite the cold environment. He jerked his head away, almost getting up again, but Gallagher pushed a hand on his chest.

“Calm the fuck down, Mickey, no one’s going to do anything bad to you.” Gallagher paused slightly. “Not when you’re being so good for me right now.”

Mickey shivered, and it had little to do with the cold table soaking through his shirt and sweater and into his back. Gallagher rubbed his hand along Mickey’s thigh. He gripped it and pushed Mickey’s leg up, resting it onto his shoulder. “See?” he said. “You like this, right? You like being able to look at me? I like being able to look at you, too.”

Gallagher wrapped his fingers around Mickey’s cock, jerking him a few times. “There’s no need to be nervous, Mickey. I like taking care of you. I can do that.”

Mickey bit the corner of his lip as Gallagher worked his cock, just a little too tight, the way that Mickey liked it.

“See? Look at you. Beautiful.” Then, almost as if he were breaking character, “God, Mickey, you’re so hot. I don’t know how you don’t think you’re hot.”

Mickey tensed, because he had thought this was a conversation they had left behind them. Gallagher rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, we don’t have to talk about, it, Christ, Mickey, don’t be so defensive.” He dropped Mickey’s cock to run a soothing hand down the outside of Mickey’s thigh. Then he offered his fingers to Mickey. “Get them wet for me.”

This was a game they had played before, fucking with little to no lube, using Mickey’s saliva, or Gallagher’s, sometimes. Mickey sucked in the fingers easily enough, using his tongue to get them wet.

“Yeah, just like that,” Gallagher breathed, his pupils looking blown as he watched Mickey suck on his fingers. “God, your fucking mouth, Milkovich.”

Gallagher pulled out his fingers and used them to get Mickey prepped, pushing in two at once. Mickey wasn’t new to this, he knew all the tricks, so he just takes them easily.

Gallagher rocked his fingers inside of Mickey’s body, pressing them against Mickey’s prostate and circling them there. Mickey put back his head and arched his back, just slightly, to get the best angle.

“Yeah,” breathed Gallagher. “Just like that. You know how to make me so happy, Mickey. So perfect. Keep doing it like that.”

Mickey felt like with every word out of Gallagher’s mouth, he was slowly becoming undone, like his body was floating about, separate from the skin trying to hold it together. But in a good way. He heard a small noise come out of his mouth, and immediately clamped down on his bottom lip to control it.

“No, no,” said Gallagher, “let that out, I like that.”

The next noise out of Mickey’s mouth was a soft little keening whimper that sort of made him want to kill himself, but Gallagher was right there, his hard cock pressing against Mickey’s leg as he groaned at the sound. “Yeah, Mickey, just like that. You don’t have to hide that shit from me, you sound so good. I like that. Keep doing that.”

Mickey wanted to melt under the words. He’d never had someone like all the parts of him that even he couldn’t stand. Gallagher didn’t seem to mind any of them. Didn’t care that Mickey was a bottom in bed, or that he was dirty and didn’t smell like a rose most of the time. Any of the time.

Mickey tried to tell Gallagher in the only way he knew how to get in him. Using the leg that Gallagher wasn’t holding against his shoulder, he hooked the other around the back of Gallagher’s knee, urging him closer.

Gallagher laughed a little. “You know that’s your favorite move?” he asked Mickey, almost teasing. “It’s cute. You don’t have to urge me on, Mickey. There’s no way I’m not getting in you. I love being in you.”

True enough, Gallagher took out his fingers and spit generously onto his palm, using it to slick up his cock. “Can you take it, Mickey? Do you want something more? I never want to do anything bad to you.”

They’d done rougher stuff with less prep, Mickey thought, so he just nudged Gallagher with his leg again, and let out another stupid whimper when Gallagher’s cock started to enter him.

Gallagher kept up a steady stroking of Mickey’s thigh as he pushed into him. “You’re okay, Mickey, I’ve got you,” said Gallagher, pushing in to the root. “Touch yourself for me. You’re going to have to take care of yourself a little today. I want to concentrate on feeling you.”

Mickey licked his own palm, sliding down his chest to grab his dick and began to jerk himself as Gallagher started to thrust into him. Gallagher wasn’t going easy on him just because of the quick prep or the lack of lubrication, and Mickey grunted with each thrust.

“There you are. Perfect. Mickey, you’re perfect.”

God, Mickey didn’t know who had told Gallagher to say this shit, but was it ever working for him. Mickey felt like he was flying in a space where he was happy, and Gallagher was happy with him, and everything was just fucking perfect.  
One of Gallagher’s hands wrapped around his own around his cock. “Keep going. You’re almost there. You come first. I want to see it.”

Mickey let Gallagher set the pace, both their hands creating a tunnel that’s almost too tight around Mickey’s cock, but it felt fucking amazing anyway. Mickey was torn, because he wanted this to last, but he also wanted to come for Gallagher, and spill all over his hand. Biology won in the end, and Mickey came with a sharp exhalation of breath.

“Beautiful,” Gallagher breathed again, letting go of Mickey’s cock to better brace himself against the table and start moving inside Mickey at a faster pace, fucking him hard. Mickey just rode it out, gripping the table himself to keep from being shoved forward into the wall, until Gallagher came with a shudder inside him.

Mickey closed his eyes, letting the aftershocks of good sex work their way through his body, as Gallagher started to go soft inside of him, panting above him. Finally, Gallagher pulled out with a wet sound, lowering Mickey’s leg from his shoulder and massaging some of the cramp out of it.

Mickey was still riding that high, already getting a little pissed because he knew that now he had to pull himself up out of that space and go deal with his shithole life. He started to sit up, but Gallagher just put a hand on his chest.

“No, hey, wait a sec, you’re okay.”

Mickey opened his eyes and rolled his head lazily to look at the boy above him. Gallagher scrambled off and came back with a bottle of water from one of the shelves behind them, and pressed it into Mickey’s hand. “Here. You’re supposed to drink this.”

Mickey stared at Gallagher and looked, nonplussed, at the bottle of water. “The fuck do I need that for?” he mumbled.  
Gallagher looked a little twitchy. “It’s supposed to help or something.” He gave Mickey’s arm a sort of glancing rub. “Just…drink it, okay?”

Mickey stared at Gallagher, trying to puzzle this out. He and Gallagher had fucked dozens of times by now, and he’d never tried to pull this stupid shit before. He sat up and started pulling his pants on, already leaving that pleasant feeling behind. “Just fucking tell me what this is about Gallagher, before I punch you in the nuts.”

Gallagher had the gall to grin. “You wouldn’t. You like my nuts too much.”

“The face, then,” Mickey growled.

Gallagher’s grin flickered. “Okay, okay. It’s just…you know.” He gave a little grimace, squinting out of his freckle-framed eyes. “Aftercare.”

Mickey stared at him. “The fuck are you talking about?”

Gallagher waved it off, pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket and offered one to Mickey. “Forget it. Just drink your water.”

Mickey was kind of thirsty, so he twisted off the bottle cap and took a swig. Gallagher looked satisfied enough, so Mickey filed away the conversation for later and let it drop. Gallagher didn’t look it most of the time with his baby face and freckles, but he could be a stubborn little fuck when he wanted to be.

Mickey had other ways of getting information.

0000000

Mickey went straight home from the Kash and Grab and busted into Mandy’s room to wrestle her away from what was ostensibly the family’s laptop. Mandy shrieked at him in a truly unholy way when he pried it out of her hands, and he was pretty sure that later he’d find claw marks on his arms that definitely weren’t made by Gallagher’s blunt nails, but it was worth it.

He slammed his bedroom door in Mandy’s furious face, locking it swiftly. Mandy’s thumping on the door made a few of the piece-of-shit knick knacks he had on the dresser next to the door totter dangerously, but Mickey was too well versed in Mandy’s temper tantrums to have anything valuable there anyway.

Casually, he flipped a middle finger at the closed door and opened the laptop. Opening Google, he bluntly typed in “sex” and “aftercare.”

He didn’t like what he found. He didn’t like it at all.

0000000

Mickey didn’t confront Gallagher right away. No, first he got into a fight with Mandy about the laptop, which left both of them bruised, and Mandy triumphantly hauling the old piece of junk back into her bedroom and slamming the door. Then he spent awhile furiously chain smoking cigarettes, which he rarely did and made him feel kind of nauseous after awhile. He kept going anyway.

When he’d worked himself up into a good lather, he made the trek two blocks over to the Gallagher shithole and pounded on the door.

When the door opened, it wasn’t Gallagher behind it, or at least not the one he wanted. It’s Lip, looking as lanky and dead-eyed as ever under a mop of unruly curls. He had a beer in his hand and his eyebrows went up as he took a sip from it and gave Mickey a once-over.

“You need something, Mickey?” he asked. “Mandy’s not here.”

“I fucking know that,” Mickey snapped. “Is your shithead brother here?”

Lip considered this. “I don’t know. Are you looking to beat the shit outta him again?”

Mickey curled his lip. “If I was, it’d be because he fucking deserves it. Is he fucking here or not?”

Lip took another sip of his beer and closed the door without answering. Mickey heard the distinctive flipping of locks, but he knew better than to leave. If Gallagher weren’t here, Lip would have said so just to get Mickey off of his porch.

Waiting wasn’t doing any favors for Mickey’s temper though, as he tapped his foot on the porch and scowled at the door. When it next creaked open slowly, Mickey knew that it was the right Gallagher behind it this time. Even more slowly than he had opened the door, Gallagher wormed his way out onto the porch, looking pretty much everywhere but at Mickey. Perhaps the little pissant had figured out that Mickey wasn’t stupid as a fucking brick and might not have let his stupid brush-off stand.

Good. Let him be nervous. The fucker deserved it.

Mickey looped an arm around Gallagher’s neck, pulling him close with a tight little smile. His grip was a little too tight to be brotherly.

“Hey, there, Gallagher,” Mickey drawled, as if this were a normal conversation. Then, he dropped his tone. “Walk with me a bit, would ya?”

Without waiting for an acknowledgement, Mickey dragged Gallagher off of his porch, unlooping his arm from around the other boy’s neck to shove him through the front gate. Gallagher went along like a man walking to his execution, and shooting looks back over his shoulder at the house, where his older brother was peeking out from the curtains like a little old biddy. Mickey waved at him cheerily, middle finger raised.

Mickey marched Gallagher along before pushing him into an alley. He kicked idly at some boxes and cans, just to make sure that there were no drunks lying there passed out, before turning to Gallagher and running his thumb over his bottom lip. He took a step towards the other boy, who nervously backed up. Mickey kept crowding him until Gallagher was up against the brick wall, grimacing like Mickey was about to take a swing. Quite possibly, Mickey was.

“So, Firecrotch,” Mickey said casually, boxing him in against the wall with his body and cocking his head curiously. “You want to explain to me exactly how submissive you think I am?”

Gallagher flicked his head with a shrill little laugh. “C’mon, Mick, it ain’t even like that.”

Mickey nodded sagely, as though he were buying that shit. He wasn’t. “So, you don’t think that I’m some needy bottom bitch that needs to be coddled after sex, right?” he asked, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice, just to let Gallagher know what the correct answer to that question was.

Gallagher’s nervous smile dropped into a little scowl. “Why do you always have to make everything sound so fucking awful,” he asked, almost plaintive. And Gallagher thought Mickey was the bitch in this relationship? “I just thought it might be a good idea. Last time, we got, you know…a little intense.”

It had been a little intense. More than a little, probably, on Mickey’s side. But that didn’t mean that he needed fucking “emotional and physical support.” Mickey liked to know that his partner was having a good time in the sack, and that what he was doing felt good to him. That wasn’t so fucking unusual. It didn’t make him fucking submissive to Gallagher.

“And you wouldn’t believe the stupid shit that comes up when you type in ‘My boyfriend likes to be complimented in bed’ into Google,” Gallagher complained. Mickey’s eyebrows shot up at that little description, but before he could make even a fraction of the protests springing to mind, Gallagher continued on. “It kept linking to stupid fucking Cosmo articles. But when I talked to Lip about it–”

Gallagher’s monologue was cut off when Mickey used his position to push him roughly against the wall.

“You fucking what, Gallagher?” he grit out. Gallagher’s eyes were open wide, in an oh-shit realization that he was about to get more than a fucking punch to the face.

“I didn’t say it was you, Mickey,” Gallagher said in a rush. “He doesn’t know anything about me and you, I swear. He probably thinks I was asking for Kash, for fuck’s sake, or maybe even me, but I swear he doesn’t know it’s you!”

“You want to get me killed, Gallagher?” Mickey snarled. “You don’t talk about the shit we do together with anyone, you shithole.”

Mickey felt a little sick. He thought that Gallagher was smart enough to know that, at least. Maybe the kid was only a year younger than him, but it was clear that he was still a fucking naïve little fawn walking the wilderness. He also hadn’t expected to feel so fucking hurt. He hadn’t let Gallagher do that shit to him in bed so that he could turn around and talk to his fucking lippy brother about it. Fuck, even Angie Zago had fucking better standards than that.

Gallagher looked a little panicked now, but that damn stubborn streak was sneaking in around his eyes again, Mickey could fucking see it. “I swear, Mickey, he doesn’t know it’s about you. And fucking face it,” he said, pushing a little against Mickey’s chest and rocking him back slightly. “Maybe you’re not submissive or whatever, but a lot of that stuff made sense when I read it. You do get kind of weird and quiet and intense during sex sometimes. I just want to make sure you’re okay afterwards. Fuck!”

Mickey kind of wanted to curl in on himself and die. He’s fucked around with plenty of people, both sexes, and no one’s ever told him that he was weird during sex. He wanted to make Gallagher take that back, push him down on the filthy ground and ride him or suck him and make him realize that Mickey’s good at this, can make him happy, doesn’t have to be weird and quiet if Gallagher doesn’t want. But that was a fleeting emotion, and one that Mickey squashed down easily. On top of it, riding way higher on his priority list, was anger.

“Well, Firecrotch, you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Mickey said, firmly.

“C’mon, Mick,” Gallagher started to protest, but Mickey just cut him off.

“Wouldn’t want to make extra work for you, Gallagher,” Mickey continued. “So how about we just don’t bring this up again?”

Gallagher looked a little gobsmacked. “What—I mean…”

“Don’t worry your pretty red head about it, Gallagher,” Mickey said, smacking Gallagher’s freckled cheek lightly. “We can still fuck. We just don’t have to do any of that—” Mickey doesn’t even know how to term it “—talking shit.” He backed off Gallagher, letting him free from the prison made by the wall and Mickey’s body.

Gallagher didn’t look happy about that suggestion. “But—”

Mickey turned, straightening his coat. “Later, Gallagher,” he announced loftily, as if he didn’t give the least amount of fucks, striding off towards his house and leaving Gallagher gaping like a fish behind him.

This was why Mickey never told anyone shit. It left him too open for betrayal.


	4. Chapter 4

The next time they fucked, Mickey made it clear they wouldn’t be going back to sweet-talking in bed. This time, they’re in an old abandoned building that’s become a squatter’s hotel. One of the upper floors was unused, and Mickey occasionally used it as a shooting range.

Gallagher didn’t seem anywhere near ready to let this whole thing go, but Mickey didn’t intend to give him an option to argue the point. They start off genially enough, headed for their usual spot to bang, an old shot-to-shit couch near the crumbling south wall, shedding outer layers as they go.

Gallagher looked ready to ignore Mickey’s express wishes on the matter and try to overwhelm him with compliments or some shit. That wasn’t going to happen, even though Gallagher might not know it, yet. Gallagher might want to grow a few inches and pack on some muscle before he tried to make Mickey do jack-shit that he didn’t want to do, Mickey thought vindictively.

When they got to the couch, Mickey took the upper hand, grabbing Gallagher by the arms and flipping him so that Gallagher went down on his back on the shitty couch.

Gallagher gave a little yelp as he hit the deflated cushions, only partly in surprise. Mickey wasn’t concerned. Let Gallagher be the one to deal with that fucking broken spring digging into his back for once. Mickey had sucked it up enough times.

Mickey swung his leg over Gallagher’s body, settling over the other boy’s hips and pressing their groins together. Mickey rolled his hips lazily, creating some friction over their jeans.

Gallagher groaned, his cock stirring in his pants as Mickey continued to grind. Gallagher was so fucking easy to rile up.

“Wait, wait,” Gallagher gasped, like he was actually going to stop in the middle to have a fucking heart-to-heart with Mickey. Mickey scoffed. They’re not boyfriends.

But Mickey did stop, leaning back but not so that he and Gallagher could have a nice little talk. As far as Mickey was concerned, that talk had been had, and was over. There was no use revisiting it. Instead, he used the room to start shucking his pants.

“Don’t you think we should talk first?” asked Gallagher, plaintively. Mickey ignored him in favor of getting his jeans down and stripping off his shirt. He held up a condom and tore off the wrapper with his teeth.

“I distinctly remember telling you that talking is now off the table,” Mickey said, quirking an eyebrow at Gallagher, who was propped up on his elbows and looking at Mickey like he’s the second coming of Christ. “Now, you want to get in me, or am I putting my clothes back on?”

Mickey’s expression dared Gallagher to try to go for the nonexistent third option of continuing to chat.

Gallagher sighed, but flopped back down on the couch, undoing his belt.

Mickey rolled his eyes at the dramatics. “Don’t look so fucking morose, there, Little Orphan Annie. You’re about to get your end in, not get it chopped off. Try to look like you’ll enjoy it, at least.”

Gallagher glared at Mickey, but when he kicked his pants off, his erection was still giving the high-sign, so Mickey took that as his cue to continue.

He’d thought a lot about how this encounter, the first since their fight, should go. He’d considered just facing the issue directly and topping, but realistically, he had little interest in that. God had put his happy button up his ass for a reason. Mickey didn’t even know why Gallagher seemed satisfied topping all the time.

Still, there were ways to keep control of a situation even while he was the one with the cock up his ass.

Mickey wasted no time climbing back on top of Gallagher and rolling the condom down his dick, before starting to guide it into himself.

“Whoa,” said Gallagher, grabbing Mickey’s hips. “Some lube, maybe?”

Mickey just smirked at him, continuing to sit on Gallagher’s dick. He watched Gallagher’s mouth go slack as he realized Mickey was already slick and stretched. He’d taken care of it before leaving the house to meet up with Gallagher. It was a hell of an uncomfortable way to walk around, but it had served his purpose pretty well.

Mickey braced one arm on the back of the couch, and the other on Gallagher’s chest.

“Jesus, Mickey,” Gallagher breathed, his eyes glued to his lap, watching his cock move easily in and out of Mickey’s body.

“Just shut up and enjoy the ride, Gallagher,” said Mickey, leaning forward enough that Gallagher’s cock was scraping past his prostate with every thrust. “I am,” he added with a grin.

And he was. Mickey didn’t have any great need to be in control during sex. He’d been happy enough to let Gallagher lead the way in bed, but that was because that’s what seemed to make Gallagher the most pleased and relaxed, and not necessarily because Mickey got off on being a passive partner.

Mickey deliberately kept his pace slow – too slow for Gallagher’s taste, as he tried to roll his hips and thrust faster into Mickey. Mickey was stronger than Gallagher, though, and in a better position, so he just pushed him back down with his hand and started a slow rocking rhythm.

This wasn’t a position that they’d used before, but Mickey looked down at Gallagher, biting his lips and avidly watching the point where he was connected to Mickey, and yeah, Mickey could see the advantages of it.

One, he thought, as he pinned Gallagher’s hands as Gallagher tried to sneak them up to grip Mickey’s hips, was there wasn’t much that was submissive about it.

00000000

It only took a few more aborted conversations for Gallagher to finally catch the hint that this was not a topic Mickey would bend on. And eventually, things pretty much got back to normal. The sex wasn’t as good as those two times, but it’s still pretty fucking good, so that’s something. And yeah, maybe occasionally when Mickey’s home alone with his hand around his dick, he thought about the way Gallagher had sounded when he’d called Mickey a good boy, and maybe when he was in the shower fucking himself with his fingers, he closed his eyes and saw Gallagher’s pink lips forming the word “perfect.” But that shit was between a man and his showerhead, and didn’t really mean anything.

And as it turned out, Mickey had a reason to be grateful he made Gallagher cut it out when he did, because it wasn’t two weeks later that fucking Kash and Grab walked in on them fucking in the freezer.

Gallagher had shown up at Mickey’s house, clearly looking for Mickey and not Mandy – already a clear violation of their unspoken agreement – and he’d been a mess, disheveled and panicked-looking out of breath like he’d run the whole way from his house to Mickey’s.

And despite the fact that his pops had been on the warpath all day, just looking for someone to whale on (he’d already clocked Mickey twice over some stupid shit, and Iggy once) Mickey left the house to meet up with Gallagher. His dad would probably kick him around some when he got back, but hell, it wasn’t anything Mickey hadn’t experienced before.

Gallagher looked desperate for him, and Mickey was barely in the door before Gallagher had it locked and was dragging him to the back.

Mickey was expecting something rough, judging by Gallagher’s desperation. It wasn’t though. They had the bare minimum of skin showing, Mickey’s jeans just below his ass, Gallagher’s denim rough against his skin as Gallagher drove into him.

Mickey grasped the shelving unit Gallagher was fucking him against for support, and grunted in satisfaction when Gallagher’s larger hand closed around his tattooed fingers.

But that was when the whole thing came crashing down around Mickey’s ears, because Gallagher’s piece on the side walked in on them fucking.

Mickey ran like a bitch, and he wasn’t able to defend that, really. But it wasn’t like Kash was going to beat on Gallagher for it – he already knew _he_ was gay.

Mickey should have just let it stand, but he couldn’t help but push it just a little too far. Milkoviches never seem to be able to tell where the fucking line was, and Mickey himself wasn’t an exception to that. He figured on Kash continuing to be just as much of a pussy as Mickey had always known him to be.

The last time Kash had tried pulling a gun on him, Mickey hadn’t even blinked. Kash hadn’t held the weapon like someone that had any intention of using it. Mickey had seen that plenty of times and he knew what it looked like. Maybe if he’d been looking at the faggot this time, he might have figured it out in time to save himself from getting shot.

He wasn’t though, but that’s just life.

The cops ask Kash why he shot Mickey. He tells them Mickey was robbing him.

Mickey knows Kash doesn’t mean his fucking store, but when the cops question him, he doesn’t disagree.

He got a year in Juvie. There were worse things.

Being away from Gallagher is kind of one of those things, but hell, this was South Side. Mickey never expected a fairy tale.


	5. Chapter 5

Mickey had made it through the first fifteen years of his life without ever landing in Juvie. But he wasn’t completely unprepared for the experience. Every one of his brothers had been in at least once before, and Mickey himself had done two stints in the state home, which wasn’t a cakewalk.

There were certain things, though, that Mickey just was not prepared for. Like the fact that every single day, there is some asshole calling him a bitch.

It meant nothing, of course. Mickey wasn’t actually anyone’s bitch, in that he wasn’t fucking or being fucked by anyone. He got an extra layer of protection at first because of his injury. Everyone was keeping an extra close eye on him, and there weren’t many opportunities for anyone to jump him, even if the desire was there, which it wasn’t. Milkovich was a name that meant something in the Chicago prison system, even in a place as piddly as Juvie.

But that did nothing to stop the name slinging. And Mickey wasn’t such a pussy that he cried about it or anything.  
When someone called him a bitch, he just slung some worse epithet back. But every time he heard it, it was like a little chunk was being carved out of him. He didn’t even know why it affected him so badly – none of these pieces of shit had any idea what Mickey was like. Still, it made him feel dirty and awful and he found himself shaving and trying to examine himself in the mirror, see if there was some visible defect that made it so obvious to everyone.

Gallagher visited him once, and only once, and it was both a blessing and a torture. A blessing, because Gallagher was still looking at Mickey with those eyes that clearly wanted him, and either weren’t aware or didn’t care that Mickey was a bitch. But also torture, because Gallagher was only inches from him but they could never touch. Even if the glass hadn’t been in the way, they couldn’t have touched. And even though Gallagher said shit about missing Mickey and wanting to know when Mickey was getting out, Mickey knew that there was no way that Gallagher was going to wait an entire year for the likes of Mickey.

Except, as it turned out, Gallager does. Well, fuck Mickey up the ass.

Ian does that, too.

0000000000

For maybe a month after Mickey got out of Juvie, things were going along fine, back to what they once were between him and Gallagher. The sex was still good, but not as good as those few singular fucks that Mickey still thinks about in the shower. Gallagher hadn’t brought it up at all when the two of them were fucking, and Mickey naively thought that must mean that Gallagher’d actually forgotten about it. He should have known better. Milkoviches were never that lucky.

Gallagher was at least subtle about it – at first. When the compliments started coming, the two of them weren’t joined at the crotch, for one thing.

“You’re really good at that,” he commented when Mickey was expertly rolling them joints. Which, okay, Mickey’s something of an old hand at it, sure, so it wasn’t that strange of a thing to say.

“That looks really good on you. It shows off your arms,” he mentioned when Mickey risked Linda’s wrath to remove the sleeves from his security uniform. And, well, Mickey had been lifting in Juvie, and since.

But then there were other things. They’d be fucking around in a back lot, throwing stones and bottles and wrestling with each other, and Gallagher would get Mickey pinned and say, “Shit, your eyes are so fucking blue,” and of course, the one that tips Mickey off, when they were doing purchase orders, and Ian had their one calculator, so Mickey did all of his math in his head, which is fucking faster anyway, and Gallagher gushed about how fucking smart Mickey was, like he wasn’t doing way more advanced math than some fucking addition and multiplication in school.

The thing was, that even after Mickey figured out what Gallagher was up to – which doesn’t actually take that long, because maybe Mickey wasn’t smart in the same way Gallagher was smart, but he knew when he was fucking being played – it didn’t seem to matter to his stupid fucking body. Gallagher said nice things to him and bam, just like that, Mickey was psychologically panting for it, which wound him up more than a little and made him want to punch Gallagher in the face. Maybe a year ago, he would have even done it, but it turned out that Gallagher was sort of on the edge of jacked now, and Mickey might even lose that fight.

Once he knew, Mickey couldn’t let it go on for long, although he could admit in the private spaces of his own mind that he did let it go on for longer than he really should have. He was a Milkovich, and Milkoviches don’t let themselves get played, even by redheads with nice arms.

Mickey waited until Gallagher was vulnerable – that was, naked – before he struck. He and Gallagher rarely took their full kit off to get down to business anymore, so Mickey had to be patient and wait it out, fighting the instinct both to glare and melt into a puddle of goo every time Gallagher made an off-handed remark about Mickey’s face or body or the way he stocked the fucking watermelons for God’s sake. It was almost worth it, though, when Gallagher stripped off his shirt and pants in their regular spot at Mickey’s shooting range.

Mickey kicked the pile of clothes casually behind him, firmly planting his body between Ian and the prize. Gallagher was left in his boxers, which was too secure for Mickey’s tastes. Gallagher raised an eyebrow at Mickey’s still-dressed form. “You want to maybe join me here?” Gallagher asked playfully, tugging at the elastic on his boxers.

Mickey grinned his sly, gonna-get-some grin that Gallagher seemed to like, and stalked forward, pushing Gallagher down on the couch and climbing on top. Mickey had been on top more often since his release from Juvie. If Gallagher had noticed or made anything of it, he hadn’t come out and said anything to Mickey. He certainly hadn’t protested.

Mickey ran his hands down Gallagher’s chest. There was something to be said for being away from your fuck toy for a couple of months and coming back to find him jacked up beyond belief. Mickey dropped back, sitting on Gallagher’s groin, feeling his cock there, beneath Mickey’s clothes and Ian’s boxers, before dropping down further, skimming Gallagher’s boxers off as he went.

Gallagher propped himself up on his elbows, watching as Mickey used the elastic on his boxers to rubber band them away from the couch. He probably thought that he was going to get a blowjob. Mickey cocked his head at the other boy, letting just a little hardness creep into his eyes and around his smile. Gallagher had grown up on the South Side, too. He knew how to sense a predator. Suddenly, he looked a little nervous.

“You want to get undressed, Mick?” he asked, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. Maybe it was out of nerves. Maybe it was because he was a fucktwat who knew he was about to get what was coming to him.

Mickey smiled benignly, slipping one hand between Gallagher’s thighs and stroking his cock lazily. Despite Gallagher’s clear suspicion, it hadn’t flagged at all, and indeed, perked up under Mickey’s attention.

“Okay, now, Copper Cock, I hope you’re fucking paying attention. And if you’re not, perhaps you can remember where my hand is right now and how fucking easy it would be for me to cause you some serious pain.”

Gallagher stilled under him. His erection didn’t wilt though. And Gallagher thought Mickey was he pervert.

“I don’t—“ Gallagher started, and Mickey squeezed just a shade too hard. Gallagher squeaked and Mickey looked down on him with one eyebrow hovering near his hairline.

“Remember, Gallagher, I’m really smart,” Mickey drawled mockingly. “That means I know when your lame ass is trying to pull something on me.”

Gallagher looked a little defeated. Mickey shook his head. The guy hadn’t actually thought that he was getting away with that shit, did he?

“I thought we were done with that shit,” Mickey complained.

“Yeah, well,” Gallagher said, looking a little shifty eyed. “Maybe you could let go of the family jewels and we can discuss it like fucking human beings, yeah?”

Mickey narrowed his eyes. “I think maybe you need the motivation, there, Fancy. No more bullshit.” As a concession, though, Mickey took his hand off of Gallagher’s dick. He stayed straddling his knees, though, just in case Gallagher decided to get cute on him. “Start talking.”

Gallagher looked a little ridiculous, sprawled out in front of Mickey, cock out and still bobbing at half-mast like a sad neglected thing. God, if Gallagher wasn’t so fucking moronic, they could be putting that to good use, Mickey thought.

“Okay,” Gallagher groused. “I maybe visited some clubs while you were away. You know.” He gave Mickey a telling look. “Not just dance clubs. Talked to some people.”

A hard knot settled in Mickey’s stomach. On one hand, this wasn’t Gallagher’s smart-mouth and genius brother who knew that he and Ian hung out sometimes. There wasn’t much risk of any of what Ian might have talked about with a bunch of faggots making its way back to the likes of Terry Milkovich. That wasn’t so much what Mickey was concerned with.

“So what,” he said, careful to keep a neutral tone, “you fuck some come guzzlers who like to be spanked and slapped across the face and suddenly you’re an expert?”

“I didn’t fuck anyone,” Gallagher protested. “And anyway, I wasn’t talking to the ones that liked, you know, pain or humiliation or whatever. That’s not what you like.”

“Bullshit, you did it for me,” Mickey scoffed. And probably bullshit he hadn’t banged any of them, either. Gallagher was a good looking kid. People like him didn’t walk into fetish clubs and then out again without seeing some action.

“Yeah, okay,” Gallagher admitted. “I was kind of curious for me, too. Shit, Mickey, you’re not the only one who was getting off, alright?” Carefully, as though Mickey might strike and take out his cock with one fatal blow, Gallagher leveled himself up off the couch until he could look Mickey in the eye. “I really liked it, too.”

“So, what,” Mickey said, refusing to look away from Gallagher, “you thought you’d ease me into it by feeding me a bunch of bullshit in our off hours? What was the plan, here, Firecrotch, that I’d get so swept away by your epic romance that I’d let you cuddle with me and call me pretty?”

“That’s not even it,” said Gallagher, wrapping one strong hand around Mickey’s bicep. “I said them because they were true, and no one ever says nice shit to you. I think it would be pretty fucking awesome if we could have something like that in bed again, but you know, there’s all this stuff we’re supposed to talk about first. Negotiation, or whatever.”

Mickey stared at him, and Gallagher squirmed under his gaze, a red flush creeping up his pale chest and into his face in the most fascinating way. “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, Gallagher.”

Gallagher waved his free hand as if brushing that whole portion of the conversation aside. “The point is, even without the sex side, I wanted to tell you about some stuff I like about you. Because sometimes Mandy, or—or Lip or whoever will say something shitty about you and it’s like they’ve never even met you. And—and you deserve to have nice things said about you, because they’re fucking true.”

Gallagher looked like he was about ready to settle in and try to out-stubborn Mickey on this one if he tried to disagree, so instead, he focused on the important piece of that little diatribe.

“Why the fuck is your lippy brother talking to you about me?”

Gallagher paused, looking cagey as shit. “Anyway, they’re not bullshit,” he said in a rush, apparently deciding to ignore Mickey’s sidebar. Mickey narrowed his eyes at Gallagher, but before he could pursue that further, Gallagher grasped his other bicep and bucked one knee, rolling his body to put Mickey underneath him in a smooth ninja move that Mickey wouldn’t have guessed that Gallagher possessed.

Mickey grunted. Gallagher had gotten taller and packed on the muscle while Mickey was away, and he was a lot heavier than he used to be. Gallagher lowered his body down, settling fully on top of Mickey, and okay, he could maybe pick up that conversation later.

“So, you’re telling me you, what, want to say nice shit to me in bed?”

“I kinda want to say nice shit to you all the time, but yeah, while I’m fucking you it’s really hot.”

Mickey considered this. Gallagher was naked and on top of him, and he liked the sensation of being pinned to the cushions. “You’re not going to make this weird or anything, are you?” he asked, finally.

“If you don’t like it, just say stop,” Gallagher said. “And after, you have to let me take care of you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Then we’re not doing it.”

“Fucking fine with me.”

“It’s not,” Ian said, his voice raised more than Mickey had probably heard it before. “It’s not fucking fine with you and you should just stop pretending like it is and just fucking talk to me like a normal human being.”

Mickey sucked his lower lip into his mouth and chewed it, considering. “What would that entail, exactly?”

“You hydrate after. Tell me if something made you feel weird or bad. Um…” Gallagher hesitated. “Let me touch you after.”

Mickey arched an eyebrow. “You wanna fucking cuddle?”

Gallagher looked ready to fight him on this point. “Yeah, I guess if that’s how you want to look at it, I want to fucking cuddle.”

“Sounds gay as shit,” Mickey complained.

“So does having my dick in your ass, and you like that well enough.”

Mickey sighed and furrowed his brow, turning the idea over in his mind. He and Gallagher didn’t really tend to stick around after they had gotten each other off. He didn’t have any concept of what snuggling with Gallagher after the fact would entail. But it didn’t sound awful or anything, although he would stab anyone that heard him say it, starting with Gallagher himself. And the sex was undeniably better.

Mickey jabbed a finger into Gallagher’s chest. “You don’t fucking tell anyone about this. Especially your fucking brother,” he added, narrowing his eyes at Gallagher, just to let him know that he had filed away that earlier comment for later ass-kicking.

“I wouldn’t.”

“And if you fucking use this to make fun of me—” Mickey started fiercely.

“ _Mickey_. I fucking _wouldn’t_.”

Mickey subsided resentfully, because, yeah, okay, maybe he wouldn’t.

“Okay, then.”

Gallagher’s eyes lit up, but he still looked cautious. “Really?”

“Don’t fucking get too excited about it, Firecrotch, it’s still just sex. We’re not boyfriends, here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gallagher said, waving that off. Then he hesitated. “We’re supposed to negotiate first.”

Mickey rolled his shoulders. “You don’t tell anyone and you don’t use this shit against me. Negotiations, Firecrotch, weren’t you there? Just don’t try any new shit without giving a guy some fucking warning and I think we’re good.”

“We should at least have a safeword.”

“The fuck is that?”

“Something you can say that lets me know you want to stop.”

Mickey stared at Gallagher. “I say ‘stop’ and you don’t fucking stop, I’ll kick your goddamn head in, how’s that for a safeword? We gonna get this party started, or what?”

Gallagher scratched his jaw. “Well, that’s probably good enough for now anyway.” He sat back and surveyed Mickey stretched out beneath him. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he muttered.

Since Mickey agreed, he reached for his tank top. Gallagher’s fingers closed around his hands. “No, let me.”

Mickey cracked his neck. That was a little more intimate than he and Gallagher usually got, but what the fuck? It wasn’t like it was any weirder than what Mickey liked. Obediently, he dropped his hands, and watched Gallagher’s as they let go of Mickey’s hands and made their way up his tank top, sliding under the fabric and touching Mickey’s bare and sweaty skin there. Gallagher hooked his thumbs on the bottom of the tank and Mickey rolled his back so that as Gallagher pushed his hands up the planes of Mickey’s flat stomach, the shirt came with it.

Gallagher was taking his time with it, letting inches of Mickey’s skin slowly appear from beneath the grimy shirt. His skin probably wasn’t much better, covered in a filmy layer of dirt, with shadowed spots of bruising littering his chest and stomach. On his side, there was one bruise clearly shaped like a boot from where his dad had stomped on him after knocking him down.

Mickey lifted his arms so that Gallagher could pull the tank over his head. “There you are,” murmured Gallagher. “Look at you. You’re so fucking beautiful, Mickey.”

Mickey turned his head, because it was harder to fall into that space where he could be whatever it was that Gallagher wanted when he knew it was what he was supposed to be doing. And beautiful was pushing it.

He figured that Gallagher would go for his pants next, but apparently, there was more work to be done before that next step. Gallagher bent down and kissed the treadmarks on Mickey’s side. Mickey jerked, because Gallagher had never kissed him before, not on any part of his body. Gallagher glanced up at him. “Did that hurt?”

Mickey jerked his head in a quick ‘no.’

“Remember our deal, Mickey. If something makes you feel bad, you need to tell me.”

Mickey jerked his head again, this time in a ‘yes,’ to show he understood.

Gallagher rubbed a hand on Mickey’s stomach. “I’m going to need some words here, Mick. Is this okay for you?”

Mickey gritted his teeth. “Yes,” he said, between his teeth.

Gallagher leaned forward again, pressed another kiss to an abraded strip of skin turning a little yellow, from when Mickey and Iggy had been wrestling, and Mickey had bashed into the end table a little harder than Iggy had probably intended. “Good boy. Thank you for that. I know you don’t like talking during sex. That was very good.”

Mickey’s chest hitched, because those were the magic fucking words, weren’t they? And didn’t Gallagher know it.

Gallagher had already moved on though, finding all of the little marks on Mickey’s body, touching each one, stroking it, putting his lips on it. Sometimes it wasn’t even fresh bruises, but old scars. He didn’t ask about any of them, because he wasn’t stupid. He knew where most of them came from, and it was hardly pillow talk.

“Who could hurt such a good boy like you,” he murmured into a bruise the size of a quarter near Mickey’s collar bone, where Terry had grabbed him and left a thumbprint. “Who would want to be so bad to you, when you’re so good, Mickey?”

Gallagher’s hand was on Mickey’s crotch now, still not going for the zipper, just palming him, rubbing idly, as if getting Mickey off wasn’t his main objective. Mickey let his legs drop open to give him better access, made a small noise in his throat when the hand not palming him cupped around his neck.

He’d never kissed Gallagher. That wasn’t what their relationship was for. Even Gallagher’s lips on his chest and stomach felt dangerously on the border of something that Mickey wasn’t ready for. This felt more intimate than a kiss.

“It’s okay, Mick, I’ve got you. Nothing bad is going to happen to my good boy while he’s here with me,” Gallagher said, and it was almost a croon, but not quite that soft. There was a hard edge there, like Gallagher really meant it, could back it up, which was fucking ridiculous. Mickey went through most of his life armed. He was infinitely more capable of protecting himself than Gallagher was, because even if Gallagher was a better shot, he was too much of a pussy to pull the trigger when it really counted.

That didn’t change the fact that the words sent a jolt of something straight through his body.

Gallagher finally – finally – unzipped his fly and worked Mickey’s cock out of his boxers. His grip around it was firm, controlled.

For all of the sex they had, they rarely did this. Sure, Gallagher sometimes gave him a reach around while he was in him, especially if they were back-to-front when they were fucking. But whenever they met up, it always seemed like a priority that Gallagher get inside Mickey as fast as humanly possible. Jerking off seemed to have been an intermediate step that they had skipped right over.

Gallagher must have had ample practice with his own dick, though, because he took to jerking Mickey off like a pro, moving his hand smoothly over Mickey’s cock, adding a twist every now and then.

It was just a handjob. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. And maybe it wouldn’t have been, if Gallagher hadn’t put his lips next to Mickey’s ear, his breath hot on the outer shell.

“Don’t come, yet, Mickey. Don’t come until I say you can come. Can you do that for me, gorgeous? Can you hold off, even though it feels so good, for me? Can you be good for me? Can you be so good?”

Mickey’s chest heaved underneath Gallagher. He’s not even fully undressed, but he feels stripped to the bone. He nodded though, licking his lips. He reached between them, going for Gallagher’s own cock, which was bobbing between their bodies, hard and ready.

Gallagher’s hand left Mickey’s neck to catch his wrist. “No, no,” he said, not pausing in moving his hand over Mickey’s dick. “You don’t need to worry about me, right now. I’m worrying about you.” He moved Mickey’s hand up to his shoulder and placed it there. “You hold onto me. That’s your job right now.”

Mickey licked his lips and moved his other hand onto Gallagher’s other shoulder, almost hesitantly, gripping there and feeling the play of muscles through Gallagher’s shoulders as his fist moved over Mickey’s dick.

“Good boy,” Ian was murmuring. “Such a good boy.” And Mickey was lost in the cadence of that, the rhythm of Ian’s hand, until Ian’s voice was in his ear, “Can you come for me, Mickey?” And Mickey had figured he could hold out for Ian, when he’d asked him to, but he hadn’t been so fucking aware of how fucking close he’d been until he was spilling over Ian’s fist the second those words finished passing over his lips. He gripped Ian’s shoulders tightly, a low groan escaping him.

“Perfect,” Ian whispered to him. “My perfect boy.”

Ian hadn’t come, and Mickey thought that was something that needed to be rectified, but he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to let go of his shoulders yet or not. Ian hadn’t said that he could. He flexed his hands nervously.

“You’re okay, Mickey,” said Ian. “I’ve got you.”

He was rubbing his hands over Mickey’s sides, up to his shoulders, and it felt fucking nice. He licked his lips, determined to get this out. “You—” he tried, and then had to stop as a little shudder went through his body. It felt too soon to be talking. “You haven’t—”

“That’s not something you have to worry about right now,” Gallagher interrupted, kneading Mickey’s shoulders soothingly. “We have all afternoon. I’ll get taken care of. Right now, I’m taking care of my sweet boy.”

Mickey thought that maybe this was a little too close to out-of-bed for Gallagher to be saying shit like that, but he also was floating pleasantly and didn’t want to start an argument. He wanted to be in that space where he felt like maybe he was good, or at least good enough for Gallagher.

He wanted to say, “Okay,” or something, but the words just wouldn’t come. Instead, he closed his eyes, and concentrated on the sensation of Gallagher’s clean, strong hands working on his dirty skin.

He should feel like shit, he thought. Sweet boy, good boy, perfect, beautiful, who got off on shit like that? But Gallagher was still touching him, not put off by him, not disgusted or laughing, no signs of thinking that Mickey was a bitch or bad, and he just couldn’t bring himself to find the energy to get worked up about it. Maybe it was weird that he liked that shit, but fuck it. Apparently Gallagher liked saying that shit, if his cock, hard and wet against Mickey’s thigh was anything to go by.

Maybe all it meant was that he and Gallagher made a fucking good pair.


	6. Chapter 6

Mickey wasn’t quite dozing, but felt like he could easily slip into that space. He felt warm and sated and pinned under Gallagher. Gallagher was idly rubbing Mickey’s arms with his knuckles, and Mickey thought he could be okay with this whole thing as long as Gallagher kept doing that.

Another part though, and a pretty big part, was keenly aware that Gallagher was still hard and unsatisfied against him, and that part was prodding him to take care of it.

Mickey’s mouth latched onto the closest bit of skin at hand – Ian’s shoulder, and began mouthing at it, considering whether he could get away with leaving a hickey there.

Gallagher huffed. “Already?”

Mickey’s refractory period was actually mercifully short, but he wasn’t looking to get off again. Well, he probably wouldn’t say no, actually, but it wasn’t the main goal.

“You,” he grunted, nipping at the area where the dip of Ian’s collarbone melted into his shoulder. He could leave a bruise there, and pretend like the matching one on his chest was from Ian and not his dad. That might be nice.

Gallagher dropped his neck to give Mickey better access, one hand ceasing its soothing rub to come up and card through Mickey’s hair. “I’m not worried about it, Mick, I told you.”

 _I fucking am,_ Mickey wanted to say, although he couldn’t really pinpoint why it was that he was so worried about it. He was already going into that space where it was hard for him to talk though. Mickey was good at sex – he thought, anyway. He wasn’t so good at talking. He always said the wrong fucking thing. He didn’t want those two spaces to collide. If he kept his mouth shut, no one could get pissed off at him. And if he could give Gallagher amazing orgasms, maybe he’d stay happy with him.

Mickey gave into his impulse and closed his lips around the skin at Gallagher’s collarbone, creating a vacuum and sucking there. Gallagher didn’t seem to mind. He just kept petting Mickey’s hair and let Mickey suck there for awhile, making sure he’d leave a mark that was good and dark, and left no doubt that it was a hickey and not a bruise.

Gallagher gave a tiny tug on his hair. “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, Mickey, but that’s starting to get a little sore.”

Mickey didn’t really want to, but he backed off, surveying the deep red bruise. It was precision work, no larger than a quarter, and edging towards a darker color in the center. Gallagher’s hand went back to stroking his hair, soothing the spot where he had tugged, even though it hadn’t hurt when he’d done it, and certainly didn’t hurt now.

“Good boy,” said Gallagher.

Gallagher would probably never know, even if they fucked a thousand times, what those two little words did to Mickey. Or, he probably had some idea, because they hadn’t even done this enough times that Mickey would need a second hand to count them on, and that phrase was seemingly a favorite of Ian’s, easily the most used in his arsenal of compliments.

Mickey sat up, which caused Gallagher to automatically pull back and sit up as well. Mickey kept his hands on Gallagher’s shoulders pushing him even farther back, pulling in his own legs so that he wasn’t underneath him anymore.

“Mickey?”

But Mickey wasn’t in the mood to hear Gallagher tell him again that he didn’t need to be taken care of. That wasn’t how Mickey saw the situation. So he just grabbed Gallagher’s knees, slid to the floor, and jerked them until Gallagher was sitting upright, with his feet on the floor and Mickey in between his legs. Mickey slid his hands up Ian’s thighs, and then looked up at him from his position on the floor, daring him to tell Mickey that he didn’t want his dick sucked.

Gallagher stared down at him and Mickey placed his lips on Gallagher’s thigh, high up, near his crotch, and started to give him another hickey there. By the time he was satisfied with the mark, Gallagher was breathing quite hard, and his cock, which had never really deflated, was standing proud and strong, circumcised where Mickey’s parents hadn’t bothered.

“Okay, you win,” Gallagher said, a little breathlessly. He reached down and touched Mickey’s mouth with his thumb, and on instinct, Mickey darted out his tongue and wrapped it briefly around the digit. Gallagher’s pupils dilated. “You have such a pretty mouth, Mickey. You want to put that on me?”

Mickey did. It wasn’t something that he and Gallagher ever discussed or anything, but Mickey never had an objection to getting Ian’s dick in his mouth. For one thing, Gallagher fucking loved it. Blowjobs were another thing that they rarely had the time to indulge in. Fucking was pretty much always the superior option when they were short on time, which was always. But when there was time, and Mickey could take him in, it was something that he loved. He loved getting fucked, too, but there was something about sucking Ian’s dick and being completely focused on providing him pleasure that sent Mickey into a perfect bubble of contentment.

Gallagher pushed his thumb a little deeper into Mickey’s mouth, and he allowed it to drop open. Ian’s hand was back in his hair, and he removed his thumb and guided Mickey’s head to his cock. Mickey used his hand to wrap around the base. Ian was big, and it was a bit of a tall order to take him all in at once. Mickey had before, but it almost took him a little while to work up to it.

Ian let out a slow breath as Mickey wrapped his lips around his teeth and swallowed Ian down, bobbing his mouth up and down, and following it with his fist, keeping Gallagher’s cock sheathed pretty much the whole time. Each time he went down again, he tried to take a little bit more, focusing on remembering that special trick to relaxing his gag reflex and letting Ian into his throat. Throughout, Ian’s hand remained on his head, but he didn’t use it as a way to take control of the situation, merely lightly rested it atop Mickey’s hair as his head moved back and forth. Occasionally, he would run a hand through it, or tuck a strand back into place. But mostly, he just seemed softly awed to have Mickey on his knees in front of him.

Finally, Mickey managed to get his lips down to the root of Ian’s cock, pausing there, nose in Ian’s orange, curling pubes – Firecrotch indeed – and feeling the sensation of being full of Ian.

‘Perfect,” Ian was saying, and he was maybe a little less composed than when he’d been jerking Mickey off. “So fucking perfect and beautiful and –“ he cut himself off as Mickey, now in the rhythm, began using Ian’s cock to fuck his mouth, effortlessly deep throating now that he had the trick of it down again.

With his hand no longer needed to jerk what his mouth couldn’t’ take in, he instead put it to better use, rolling Ian’s balls in his hand, weighing the feel of them, heavy and hanging. One finger snaked back to rub firmly on the strip of skin behind Ian’s balls.

Ian made a noise and again there was a gentle tugging at Mickey’s hair. “Off, Mick, I’m gonna shoot.”

Not that Mickey didn’t appreciate the warning, but he also had no issue with that. So he just took Gallagher in as far as he could take him, and sucked like he was trying to give Ian another hickey. Ian came with a low groan, straight down Mickey’s throat. Mickey kept the softening flesh in his mouth a moment, feeling the spasms in Ian’s thighs under his hands and bathing in the satisfaction of having pleased Ian, of having made him come. Then he backed off, leaving Ian’s dick wet and shiny and spent.

“Jesus, what am I going to do with you?” Gallagher muttered.

 _Keep me_ , was Mickey’s first thought, and he was almost glad that he was still in that space where he didn’t want to say anything, or he might have even said it out loud, and there was no recovering from shit as stupid as that.

Gallagher pulled him back up onto the couch, and even though they probably wouldn’t go again for awhile, if they even did it again today at all, he didn’t reach for his clothes. He just wrapped his arms around Mickey and laid them back on the couch, Gallagher still naked, Mickey having never got his lower half undressed.

Mickey coughed, clearing the irritation in his throat. “Again with the cuddling?” he asked.

Gallagher tightened his hold, like Mickey was going to try to weasel his way out of it. “Yes,” he said, simply, like that was the end of the matter. Mickey considered how fucking stubborn the redhead could be about the stupidest shit and had to concede that it might, indeed, be the end of it.

He closed his eyes and both let himself drift and let Gallagher’s hands ground him. He could probably live with that.

000000000000

It took weeks for Mickey to notice, and even then, it was only because Mandy made a comment and caught him off guard.

“What are you so fucking happy about?”

Mickey stared at her, because he had no real answer to that question. “The fuck are you talking about?” he asked, mystified, because nothing particularly good had happened to him today. He wasn’t even doing anything fun later, just going to work a shift at the Kash and Grab, which was boring as shit and only tolerable because Ian was there.

“You’ve been all smiley and relaxed,” accused Mandy, and it was an accusation, because no one in the Milkovich household ever had anything to be smiley and relaxed about unless it was a score they weren’t sharing.

Mickey…hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t noticed that he’d been happier lately, but once Mandy pointed it out, he couldn’t help but see the evidence there for himself.

It wasn’t even just right before or after he and Ian would meet up to get off, either. It was just in general. Perhaps the steady diet of orgasms was good for his health, he thought, but really, they weren’t getting off with any more or less frequency than they ever had, and Mandy had never noticed anything different before.

Mickey knew that he should simply ride the high and try to enjoy it while it lasted, because God knew if there was one thing this fucking universe abhorred, it was a happy fucking Milkovich. But he couldn’t help but stay tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knew it had to happen eventually.

000000000

It wasn’t all fucking between Ian and him. They only saw each other in passing, being as they were both in different grades, and Ian being in the smart classes and Mickey barely scraping by in the classes that were one step above the retard rooms. Plus, it wasn’t a good idea to socialize too much on school grounds. Mickey had thought adults could get wound up about faggots, but they were nothing to some limp-dick jock who was out to prove how much he loved pussy and titties. Mickey knew exactly what would happen if anyone got whiff of the fact that he took it up the ass and Gallagher gave it to him.

It doesn’t bother Mickey very much, though, because school is shitty anyway, and there aren’t that many opportunities for them to do anything even if they were daring enough to try.

Work is different. Mickey gets to know the rhythms of the place pretty quickly, and there are certain days, certain times, when it’s almost guaranteed to be slow. He and Gallagher fuck a lot on company time, which is awesome. But sometimes it’s not even about the fucking. Sometimes it’s just him and Gallagher and an empty store, or maybe a stray customer or two, and Mickey will be stocking a shelf and Gallagher will walk behind him, deliberately brushing against Mickey. Sometimes Mickey will be reading a magazine at the counter and Gallagher will reach over to get a closer look at an article or ad or some shit, and their hands will brush.

Mickey wasn’t the type to get gooey and romantic and fantasize about every little contact he and Gallagher had. It was just something that he noticed, was all, the touching. That Gallagher touched him. That sometimes he went out of his way to touch him. And how it was always soft and tentative and never fucking hurt.

And sometimes, they do stuff outside of work. When his brothers are out on a run with his dad, he and Ian sprawl on the Milkovich’s beat-to-shit couch and watch action movies, or Mickey will sit on the bleachers and smoke and watch Gallagher train for his army shit. That was kind of fun because it gave Mickey an excuse to sit and watch Gallagher sweat through his thin t-shirts, and he really had packed on some decent muscle.

Even though all of that is stuff they do, Mickey would never classify them as friends. If they weren’t fucking, Mickey doubts any of the rest of it would be happening. It’s not like Gallagher is any better than him, but even though their families are in the same income bracket, and the Gallaghers have just as many kids running around as the Milkoviches do, the Gallaghers all seem to have fucking _dreams_. Any ghetto bastard can think of getting out of the neighborhood by signing up with the local recruiting station – that doesn’t take a genius. But Gallagher doesn’t just want to be some mook with an AK47 shooting at terrorists in the desert. No, Gallagher has to dream about going to some fancy military academy and becoming a fucking officer.

That’s how Mickey knew not to become too fucking attached, despite the fact that even though he would never call them friends, it sometimes feels like Gallagher is his _best_ fucking friend. Even though he’s almost gotten used to Gallagher’s hands in his hair, on his hips, stroking his thighs, and Gallagher’s voice telling him how good he is, how smart he is, how fucking happy he makes the kid by doing nothing but being himself.

These are things that Mickey was not allowed to have forever, and he fucking knew it. Because Gallagher was a good fucking guy and he deserved to get those big dreams he was always talking about. And Mickey wasn’t Mandy, who still had big stars in her eyes. He knew that when Gallagher went, Mickey wasn’t going to be allowed to follow. Mickey was South Side for life.

He got a good couple of months. It was more than he was hoping for, really.

Then, Frank fucking Gallagher.

Mickey acknowledged that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Frank hadn’t heard any of the usual shit Ian said to him while he was flat on his back. Mickey doubted he could have kept that quiet any longer than it took him to get out of the front door. But fuck, Mickey taking it up the ass was definitely enough to get a bullet through his head, in any case.

The most mystifying thing about the whole fucking mess was how very much Gallagher didn’t seem to _get it_.

Mickey paced back and forth manically, chewing the skin around his thumb raw. “We gotta kill him,” he concluded. Some shithead was knocking on the door, trying to get in the store, but Mickey could give a fuck about some kid wanting candy or an alkie looking to buy scratchers. “Fuck off,” he snapped, without even looking at the door.

His skin felt like it was on too tight. Mickey felt like he was being suffocated under the sheer weight of someone _knowing_. Someone who frequently got black-out drunk and ran his mouth at the local bar where Mickey’s father occasionally went for pool or a drink.

“No one will miss Frank anyway,” Mickey said, working through the steps frantically in his head. “We shoot him in the head and we dump him in the river.”

Ian was leaning against the checkout counter and didn’t even have the common decency to look even mildly concerned. “He’s got a lousy short term memory. He’s probably already forgotten,” he said, and Mickey didn’t buy that for one second.

“We can’t chance that,” he said, because Ian seemed to think that everything would be fine no matter what happened. He just didn’t seem to get that if Frank ran his mouth and word got back to Terry Milkovich, it would be _Mickey_ that got a bullet to the head and a nice swim in the river.

“I’ll talk to him,” Ian said, and he said it solemnly, but also like _he still fucking thought that talking was going to fix this fucking shit storm._

“Cut his hands off, pull his teeth, he can’t even be identified.” Mickey was going to get Gallagher on this fucking kill Frank train if it was the last thing he fucking did, which it very well might be if Gallagher didn’t get on the fucking kill Frank train.

“Watch the store, I’ll go take care of it,” said Gallagher, waving Mickey off and heading for the front door.

“My Uncle Joe works at the foundry. He’ll dump the teeth in a chrome plating vat and it’s done.” Mickey started ripping off his hoodie, sweating profusely even without the help of the lining.

Gallagher aborted his mission for the door and swung back to look Mickey in the eye. “Mickey, you need this job for your probation.” Gallagher was starting to sound on the edge of desperate now, and Mickey was beginning to consider that maybe Gallagher didn’t want his asshole of a father dead. That was pretty baffling to Mickey, who wouldn’t have protested if someone capable of the job had volunteered to bash _his_ father’s head in.

“No,” he said, holding up a forbidding finger. “What I need is to take care of Frank before he has a chance to run his big mouth.” Gallagher still looked displeased, his lips in a tight line, and Mickey took pity on him, because maybe a kid shouldn’t have to be responsible for doing in his own old man. And Gallagher was a pussy about shit like that, even if his big dream was to go off and shoot down a bunch of towelheads. “Stay here. This won’t take long.”

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It shouldn’t have taken long, is the thing, because Frank is normally easy as shit to find, with only a few spots willing to tolerate his presence for any length of time. Except that Frank’s not in any of them. Mickey thinks the Alibi is most likely, since Kevin’s a fucking soft touch that lets Frank drink way past his ability to pay, but he’s not there. The eldest Gallagher sibling also told Mickey she hadn’t seen him, and fuck, she didn’t have any more reason to cover for Frank’s ass than anyone else did, so she was possibly even telling the truth. And every second Frank was wandering out there in the wide world, it was more likely that he’d opened up to some stranger he’d decided was his soulmate of the second and waxed poetic about his middle boy doing the youngest Milkovich son up the ass.

Finally, Mickey let Joey and Iggy knock off, and he slept on the couch in his gun range rather than go home, terrified that he would come home and his pops would blow his head off the second he stepped through the door. If Terry hadn’t heard the news, it wasn’t like he’d care that Mickey had been out all night.

In the morning, he called up Iggy, who still sounded normal enough, so Mickey figured it was safe to sneak into the house and get a change of clothes and round up his brothers for another check around town for Frank. But if he was around, he was lying low.

The only person that would have known to tell Frank to lie low was fucking Ian. What a fucking pussy.

Mickey left his brothers back at the Milkovich house. They were getting a little bored of the Frank hunt anyway, and while they were checking some of the seedier bars around town, Joey had scored some coke he wanted to try out. Mickey left them to it and made for the Kash and Grab.

Mickey headed around to the back and ducked under the loading bay door, where he found Gallagher smoking a butt on a crate of inventory, looking stressed. Well, Mickey could fucking relate.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

“I have no idea,” Gallagher responded, quickly, casual as you please.

“He’s had twenty four hours to run his mouth already,” Mickey said lowly, “Where is he?”

Gallagher stood up, facing Mickey and taking a drag from his cigarette. “He won’t,” he said simply, like Frank Gallagher didn’t make a fucking career out of disappointing his children and fucking up their lives out of spite or sheer stupidity.

“If my dad finds out about this, he will kill me himself,” Mickey stressed, because even though he’s said it more than once, Gallagher just seems to think that he was exaggerating. Mickey wasn’t the dramatic type.

Gallagher just huffed and started to make his way into the storefront. Mickey trailed after him. “I’ve checked sixteen bars, the homeless shelter, shanty town under the L, your house, Batty Shiela’s, _where the fuck is he?”_ Mickey grasped Gallagher’s arm, but the other boy just turned and shrugged him off, roughly.

“I don’t know,” he snapped back, exasperated, but also not really looking at Mickey, and sounding just a little too guilty.

“Bullshit!” Mickey exploded, because he should have known better than to expect that Gallagher would prioritize Mickey over any member of his family, even one as shitty as Frank. “You warned him.”

Exasperated, Mickey made his way behind the counter and opened the register.

“I hate him more than you do,” Gallagher said defensively, following Mickey to the counter.

Mickey rifled through the register, counting off bills expertly. He would just storm out, but the fact was, he might find himself having to run, and he couldn’t afford to wait for Linda to send him his last check. “I ain’t stealing this. This is less than what I’m owed for my hours this week. I’m done.” He indicated the shitty store around him. “Done.” He indicated to Gallagher. “Done.”

Mickey started out from behind the counter, and Gallagher tried to block his way. Mickey could have made an issue out of it if he wanted, but he just rocked back, annoyed.

“Mickey, please,” Ian said, a note of desperation leaking into his tone as he grabbed Mickey’s arms. Mickey grunted, not really used to Gallagher manhandling him outside of the times they fucked. He sort of casually touched Mickey all the time, but never this solidly. “Don’t fucking do this.”

Mickey felt a sort of stiff tension building between the two of them. It wasn’t sexual – for once – but still held an air of anticipation. Just not for anything good.

Gallagher’s face was gentling, his thumbs starting to make little circles where they were pressed against Mickey’s biceps. Mickey’s eyes dropped to follow the little movement, because it was a familiar one, but out of context. It was something that Ian only did after sex, when he was holding Mickey. Never any other time.

Ian took half a step forward, still holding onto Mickey’s arms, so he couldn’t retreat, slotting into Mickey’s personal space.

“Please, Mickey,” said Ian, his voice pitched so low Mickey almost needed to focus to work out what he was saying. “Please. For me. Be a good boy for me.”

Mickey shoved him off so hard that he hit the shelving behind him with a bang, sending a few cans tumbling to the ground. Gallagher looked shocked, obviously not having expected that.

Mickey dabbed the back of a trembling wrist against beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. “You don’t get to do that,” he forced out, and hated how hard it was to open his mouth to talk, how very close he’d been to sliding into that zone where he would have agreed to anything to please Ian and make him happy with Mickey. He hated how unsteady his voice was, and wondered if Ian could see how close he was to the edge, and how easy it would be for him to push just a little harder, and get what he wanted.

Ian held up his hands. “Sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Gallagher took a step forward, like he was going to put his hands back on Mickey, but Mickey sidestepped him, panicked about what he might do if Gallagher touched him again.

Mickey had never precisely felt out of control while Gallagher was fucking him. Sure, at that point, his main focus was on Gallagher, making Gallagher happy with him, but he’d never been made to do anything he wasn’t happy about doing anyway. Gallagher was easy to please that way. Sometimes, it even made Mickey feel powerful. Every word of praise out of Gallagher’s mouth was because of something that Mickey had done. He was making Gallagher say those pretty things.

Now, he felt out of control. Like Gallagher could make him do something Mickey didn’t want to. It was terrifying.

Gallagher looked like he was sorry he’d tried it, but once again, didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation.

“Mickey, I just don’t want you to –”

“You think I care what you want?” Mickey snapped. “What did I just say to you?” Mickey tried to ignore the roiling in his stomach and the little traitorous voice in the back of his head screaming about how bad he was for making Ian unhappy with him. “You think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend here? You’re nothing but a warm mouth to me.”

That was a laugh, really, because Mickey went down on Gallagher twice for every time Gallagher went down on him, because Mickey liked focusing on Gallagher and disliked Gallagher not being able to talk.

Gallagher looked gut punched and Mickey knew he had to get out right now, and not just out of the store, because Mickey wanted to fall to his knees and press his face into Gallagher’s warm, firm stomach and beg his forgiveness until he stopped feeling like he was…a bad boy.

That phrase made Mickey feel childish and small and helpless in a way that its counterpart didn’t. He’d been called so many worse things in his life, that those two little words should have been laughable. But they weren’t.

Mickey was bad, and Gallagher had said he would never use Mickey’s need to be good against him and he had _lied_. And Mickey needed to not be here right now.

“Sorry I gotta go kill your dad, but I’m doing a lot of people a favor,” said Mickey, turning on his heel and heading out the door. “Including you.”

Mickey headed down the street, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying not to throw up as a chorus of “Bad boy, bad boy, bad fucking boy,” made rounds in his head. Pussy. He was such a fucking pussy.

He was so much of a pussy, in fact, that when Joey burst into the house later that night to inform Mickey that he’d found Frank, and Mickey was feet from his troubles being over, gun in hand, all he could picture was Ian Gallagher’s fucking devastated face. And he couldn’t do it.

And since he couldn’t do it, he also knew that he couldn’t stay here. For a number of reasons, the first of which being that Frank was still bound to run his mouth. The second was that Mickey had just proven how very weak he was. If he was still in the South Side, within a week he’d go crawling back to Gallagher. And he can’t. He just can’t be that person.

So when he saw some cops yanking in a drunk for pissing on the street, he made a quick decision. Punching the cop in the face felt good. Punching a cop always felt good. And he laughed when he asked if this was going to violate his probation, because of course it would, and he’d probably be away from the Milkovich house for months. He’d be away from Gallagher for months. No temptation. No need to worry that his dad would stagger home from the Alibi having heard some unsavory rumors and go at his head with a baseball bat.

Mickey should be relieved. No, he definitely was. So he laughed, and ignored the image of what Gallagher’s face would look like when he heard that Mickey had gotten himself popped for something so idiotic and avoidable. “Badbadbadbadbadbad,” his head chanted.

Mickey just grinned and laughed, because it was a better option than crying.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Juvie was so much worse the second time around, on just about every level.

First, Mickey felt like actual shit. He was shaky and felt ill and just lost, and frustratingly, like he wanted Gallagher, and abandoned that Gallagher wasn’t there. And he knew intellectually that it was more the other way around, that it had been Mickey abandoning Gallagher when he punched that cop, but logic wasn’t in play here. Mickey wanted Gallagher and Gallagher wasn’t fucking there.

Then, there was the fact that Mickey felt like shit for wanting Gallagher, even though he knew that all there was between them was sex. And that was down to Mickey, too, because Gallagher was the romantic type and probably wanted them to walk down the street holding hands and shit.

All these emotions did was make Mickey feel vulnerable in a spot when he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. It was like a stink that he couldn’t shake off, and Mickey knew that it was dangerous to have that aroma clinging to him in Juvie.

He hadn’t even been back in for two days before someone tried something. At first, Mickey thought it was just some asshole being smart. Mickey was staring resolutely and with no appetite into his soupy mixture of state prison food when a kid slid into the seat directly across from him. Mickey dragged his eyes from his food to look at the guy, because even though he felt out of sorts, he knew that there were things that you had to do to protect yourself in Juvie, and one of them was being aware of the people around you.

The kid was bulky in a way Mickey never would be, with ropy muscled arms and his curly black hair styled in tight little knots around his head. His skin was shiny and dark, and he was the kind of guy that Mickey might have snuck an extra look at, if he was on the outside.

Mickey didn’t drop his eyes back to his food, because that was a sign of weakness. Instead, he shifted in his seat, sighing heavily like he could barely stand this shit and stirred his boxed mashed potatoes and thin gravy with his fork.

The guy grinned at him, pursing his lips and blowing Mickey an air kiss. It would have been enough for Mickey to start a fight, anywhere else. Here, it was a threat.

Juvie was a little different from big-boy jail. Most of the delinquents were only here for a couple of months. A few years, tops. There was no real excuse for having a regular prison bitch. That doesn’t mean that fucking doesn’t happen. It was just more brutal, more explicitly about power and position and less about scratching an itch. Mickey absolutely cannot be prey here, even though half of him doesn’t even care. Let them fuck him. It wasn't like he’s not used to it.

That was just his funk talking, and Mickey forced himself to spoon some of his potatoes in his mouth and locked eyes with the guy. He pulled his fork from his mouth and then casually, keeping his eyes locked with the other guy’s, snapped his spoon in half. Then he gave the guy his most crazed smile, the one that he picked up from Mandy, her, you-don’t-want-to-fuck-this-this-will-fuck-you-up smile that she gave to creepy guys on the L.

The guy just smirked, and Mickey knew that he was planning something, and that Mickey hadn’t managed to put him off at all. But that was something to worry about later. Mickey used his spoon to eat his Jello, with its sad, stale little dab of whipped cream on top, and made himself focus on the other guy, taking mental notes of how to best defend himself against the guy’s superior height and weight, and telling himself to get the fuck over Ian Gallagher before he got himself killed.

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Mickey did some quiet poking around and learned that the cafeteria guy’s name was Darnell Michaelson, and that he had something of a reputation for breaking in the new boys. He was also only three months from getting out of Juvie, so Mickey wouldn’t have to put up with him for very long. But long enough, he figured.

Mickey doesn’t really want to start shit. He figured that if he kept his head down and quietly did the rest of the term he was due for the old shoplifting charges, whatever was going to have happened at home would have happened, and he can get out and either go on with his life or head for the fucking hills, depending on how it had all shaken out.

So Mickey doesn’t get proactive, which as it turned out, maybe he should have.

Mickey watched out for himself in the vulnerable areas. Anyone that approached him in the shower would have to be prepared to lose a limb. He was extra watchful when there were fewer people around.

Darnell got to him anyway.

The guy was taller than Mickey by maybe four inches and outweighed him by at least forty pounds. He was brutal and he went for the throat first.

Mickey was the youngest of five boys, and he’d always been the smallest, and the best fighter. If he was expected to go down, he was going to go down swinging. And Mickey was the one that taught Mandy her down and dirty defense. He wasn’t afraid to hit where it hurt. So when Darnell came for him, Mickey didn’t even let him get close. He planted his prison-issued shoes into Darnell’s crotch so hard that the guy had to be sent out of Juvie for hospital services.

Mickey later heard a rumor that one of his balls ruptured and had to be removed. Mickey didn’t care. Darnell was out of the picture for the rest of his Juvie tenure, and that was all Mickey cared about.

After that, no one else approached him directly, but Mickey could all but feel them circling, sharks scenting for blood in the water. Even though he was a loner and pale and short and gave off vibes like he’s prey, he’s not _easy_ prey, and they’ve learned that well enough.

Mickey lay in his bunk, stroking his arms and trying to talk himself back to the reality where he was a fucking Milkovich and a badass _and no one wanted to fucking mess with him._ He had no idea why it was so hard. It was the space that he’d carved out for himself years ago, and it had always fit like an old jacket, well worn and long formed against his body. It should be an easy, old fit.

Week two was better, because Mickey managed, somehow, probably by sheer force of will, to shake off his funk and start making inroads. He used his allotted phone time to talk to Iggy, who was the most recent Milkovich to do a stint in Juvie, and took copious mental notes about the alliances and enemies Iggy made while inside, and then he sought out the old allies that he himself had made the first time he went to Juvie. Some of them were still here from the first time, a few have gotten thrown back in after a short stint on the outside.

He figured out the system for contraband goods pretty fast – it was always the mail room guys – and worked out a deal to funnel in some of the harder stuff, coke and Ketamine, from Iggy and Joey. That helped enormously. Slowly, Mickey settled back into his old self, and stopped feeling like he was one wobble from falling off a tenuous tight-rope. No longer prey.

He should have known better than to get comfortable, though. Week three, he was approached by someone else who had figured out that Mickey Milkovich wasn’t prey.

In Juvie, if you weren’t prey, you were predator.

00000000000

The kid was desperately pathetic, was Mickey’s first thought. He was taller than Mickey by maybe an inch and a half, but skinnier, and Mickey wouldn’t have hesitated to take him in a fight. When he slid in the seat across from Mickey in the cafeteria, Mickey flicked his eyes up at him, expecting perhaps that the memory of the poor crushed balls of Darnell had faded enough for someone else to try his hand at taking him down.

Immediately, though, he knew that wasn’t the case. This kid made Ian look hard.

His face was round and doughy, and his sandy hair spiraled out from his head in a spray of curls more unruly than Lip Gallagher’s. He smiled at Mickey, his thin lips parting to reveal an honest-to-God gap between his teeth.

Mickey stuffed a forkful of eggs in his mouth. _This kid’s gonna get himself killed,_ he thought.

“Yo,” the kid said, grin still plastered across his face like it had been painted there. “You’re Milkovich, right?”

Mickey grunted, hunching his shoulders over his plate and poking darkly at the runny bit of white water that pooled around his eggs. How was it even possible to make scrambled eggs runny?

“I’m Toby,” the kid said, like Mickey had asked. Mickey aggressively stirred his eggs with his fork, before spearing a piece and lifting it on his fork to examine it.

“Am I supposed to give a shit?” he asked idly.

The kid – Toby’s – grin widened, like Mickey had made a funny joke. “Nah,” he said. “But you might want to hear what I have to say. I could be useful to you. And your business.”

Mickey didn’t answer, just ate his unappealing eggs. People like this never knew when to shut up. The kid would talk himself out eventually.

“I’ve been in here a lot,” Toby said, nodding along with his own words. “I know a lot of people.” Been beat up by a lot of people, Mickey guessed. “This is my third time in. Probably here until I’m eighteen this time.” He looked at Mickey appraisingly. “You’re not.”

Mickey’s starting to put together what exactly the kid wanted. It’s true that if Mickey stayed under the radar, continued to attend his classes and make progress, it was likely that he’d be out of this place within a few months. Despite that, he was building a tidy little empire funneling drugs in. It was enough to keep someone in here comfortable with favors and contraband. In a few months, it would be useless to Mickey, but not to this kid.

He tossed Toby an actually considering look. “You ain’t got anything I want,” he dismissed. That was a lie, though. Everyone in Juvie had something worth trading.

The kid showed the gap in his teeth. He knew that Mickey was at least a little interested, because otherwise, Mickey would have kicked the shit out of him and walked away.

“I can take over some of the more tedious parts of the business. I can collect, distribute for you. Learn the ins and the outs. You don’t gotta give me nothing until you get out. Then just introduce me to your suppliers and let me keep the business going. You get put back in, you don’t have to worry about setting it up again.”

“You ain’t got the clout to be an enforcer for me, shithead.”

The kid shrugged, because he must have known that before he ever approached Mickey. “So I threaten them with you.”

Mickey knew it wasn’t worth it. There were a million reasons to say no. But he was used to having someone there to watch his back. Sure, usually it was one of his brothers, and they were actually capable of the job, but they weren’t here, and Mickey didn’t expect any other offers to be forthcoming. He popped open the top of his milk carton and drank the whole thing in one go before crumpling the empty carton in his hand and dropping it on his tray.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, before standing to clear his tray. He didn’t look back, but he’d bet if he did, the kid’s fucking gap teeth would be on display.

00000000

The thing is, Toby was a giant pain in Mickey’s ass. The kid got in more fights than anyone Mickey’d ever seen and it was not even because he was an asshole. He just had a fucking habit of opening up his mouth and saying the exactly fucking wrong thing. And he had no concept of how to protect himself. Not just that he doesn’t know how to fight, although he doesn’t, but that he doesn’t know when to shut his mouth or when he’s about to cross a line between being an annoyance and being someone who’s about to get his ass kicked.

And because Mickey’s the dumbest fuck on the cell block, he’d made this dumbass his fucking problem. So, the first week after Toby approached him in the lunchroom, Mickey arranged to kick no less than three different inmate’s asses, and he silently thanked whatever God there might be in the universe that Toby at least knew not to fuck up with people with gang affiliations.

Mickey would drop him like a hot potato, but the thing was, Toby wasn't actually that bad when he wasn't making messes for Mickey to clean up. Once it was known that Mickey would back Toby up if anyone tried to welch, Mickey suddenly had a lot less work to do, and could basically sit back and let the goods roll in.

Toby was probably skimming some off the top. Mickey would. He doesn’t begrudge him that, so long as the expected revenue kept flowing in and Mickey doesn’t have to do anything.

And Toby was actually not horrible company. They started to hang out, or whatever the equivalent was in Juvie. They spend their yard time together. When they share classes, they sat near each other. Toby used the money his parents put in his commissary account to buy cigarettes for Mickey, and he’d sit on Mickey’s bunk while Mickey lay on his back and smoked leisurely.

Toby was annoying in that he always seemed to say the wrong fucking thing at the wrong time, but when Mickey was watching it happen to someone else, it was almost funny.

It was almost like having a friend. Mickey had never had a friend before, so it was hard to tell, but he was pretty sure.

The next time a new shipment came in, there was a little packet of maybe thirty pills of Oxy. Mickey’d always liked Oxy, liked the mellow high of it, the way it kind of made him numb and just made everything else muffle and fade without totally debilitating him. He doesn’t mess with the harder products in Juvie. It’s not worth the risk of getting caught, and Milkoviches aren’t known for being subtle with their highs.

He doesn’t mind the Oxy though, and because, hey, why not, they’re _friends_ , he even invited Toby to partake. Toby doesn’t say no.

They took their pills in Mickey’s bunk. Mickey was sitting on his bed, and Toby was on the floor, leaning against it. Mickey rode the pleasant feeling of being high – it had been awhile. Mickey doesn’t talk when he’s high. He slides right into that zone, that was so easy for him, where everything went quiet and he was just focused on the pleasure. There was no one else to focus on but Toby, though, and Toby was apparently a chatty mother fucker when he’s high. It was Mickey’s least favorite type.

All Toby wanted to talk about was the girl he’s got waiting for him on the outside. Mickey could care less about the kid’s romantic troubles, but he couldn’t muster the voice to say so.

“Man, Jenny, she’s got these curves, you know,” said Toby, indicating a vague shape in the air that could mean anything. “She’s so fine. Curses like a sailor, but she’s really smart. Way smarter than me. Too good for me really, but I figure she’ll wait for me. I put a baby in her before I went inside. I’ll probably never see the fucking thing till it’s a toddler, but nobody wants to get involved with a girl with a baby, so I figure she’ll probably still be waiting for me when I get out. It’s probably a good thing I got popped when I did, though. Her dad was going to make me marry her.”

Mickey let the patter wash over him and slowly rolled his head from side to side, enjoying the lightheaded feeling washing over him.

Suddenly, there was a face in front of his, and Mickey was looking into blue eyes a few shades paler than his own. 

“You okay, there, Milkovich? You ain’t saying much.” 

Mickey let out a sighing breath. Toby’s face was so close that when he breathed back in, he could taste the cigarette he’d just smoked on his breath. Toby was kneeling so he could look Mickey in the face. He leaned forward, as if to inspect Mickey’s eyes, and his hands slid over Mickey’s knees for balance. 

“You don’t say much in general, do you, man?” Toby asked. His hands slid a little higher up, coming to rest on Mickey’s thighs, and Mickey should definitely be shoving him off by now. 

Mickey flicked his eyes from Toby’s down to Toby’s hands. Toby was the same age as Gallagher, a year younger than Mickey, but he’d already grown into his hands in a way that Ian was only just starting to. He had a man’s hands already, skinny fingers with bony knuckles and wide palms. 

“Weren’t you just talking about your girl on the outside?” Mickey mumbled, watching those hands. They weren’t moving, they were just there, on his thighs. Higher up than they had any right to be.

Toby shrugged. “I’m in here for awhile, man. And you don’t seem like you mind.” 

Mickey thought he should at least pretend to mind, for appearances sake, but he didn’t object as Toby’s hands slid higher up. He dropped so that his butt rested on his heels. It put his lips about level with Mickey’s knees. If Mickey spread his legs, it would be about level with his cock.

“I’m not gay,” Mickey said. Toby’s lips quirked, flicking his pale blue eyes up to Mickey. 

“Me either,” he said. “Jenny, remember? But I’m here for another two years, man. Any port in a storm. You’ve done okay by me. It wouldn’t be the first time I gave a blowjob. I’m even okay at it. You’d like it.”

He pushed on Mickey’s knees and Mickey allowed them to be spread. He felt strange. Mickey had the power in this situation, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted it.

Toby leaned forward, breathing on Mickey’s crotch. Mickey was still clothed, but he could feel the slight warmth of his breath. Mickey cracked his neck, trying to think through the pleasant fog of the Oxy. 

Toby seemed to think that Mickey’s silence equaled consent though, because he leaned forward and started mouthing at Mickey’s pants, mouthing the shape of Mickey’s dick and testicles through the fabric. Mickey’s dick gave a half-hearted twitch and Toby shot him an amused look. “You want to take off your pants, or you want me to do you through them?” he asked. “It’s not gay if I don’t actually touch your dick, right?” 

Mickey watched as Toby continued to mouth his dick through his pants, saliva making a slowly-growing wet patch on his pants. His dick was showing interest, but mostly Mickey was just thinking that this wasn’t hot at all. Toby was kind of amusing, but he reminded Mickey of Lip Gallagher, and that was unarousing on several different levels. First, Lip Gallagher was an asshole and a smart-mouth. Second, it just made Mickey think of a Gallagher who was definitely more appealing, and Toby definitely fell short when he made that comparison.

Mickey took Toby’s hair in his fist and drew him back. He didn’t pull hard. He still liked Toby. Toby blinked slowly up at him, eyes lazy with Oxy.

“I’m getting out in a few months,” Mickey said. “I’m not that desperate. And I’m not gay.”

Toby’s lips curled into a small smirk, as though he knew the truth of that statement, but he just shrugged and dug in his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes. “Okay, man,” he said, tucking the stick between his lips and lighting it up. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Mickey nodded, and in the interest of maintaining the alliance, accepted the cigarette when Toby handed it off. His dick was half-hard and pressing against the cooling wet patch on his pants.

Mickey swung his leg up onto his bunk and lay down, taking drags off the cigarette and blowing smoke out into the air until Toby reclaimed it. He decided to just enjoy his high and not think about the fact that for those few minutes when another boy’s mouth had been against his dick through two layers of fabric, it had felt like he was betraying Gallagher.

The next day, he turned the whole business over to Toby.

The kid’s eyes flickered. “Hey, man, is this because of yesterday?” he asked. “Because I was just messing around. And I’m really not gay,” he protested.

Mickey shrugged. “Not a big thing man,” he said. “I’m gonna be eligible to get out on probation soon. Just don’t want to fuck that up for something dumb. You were gonna take it up in a few months anyway. Might as well get a head start.”

Toby stared at him, and Mickey knew that he was trying to figure out if Mickey was going to find him later in an isolated area and beat the hell out of him. Mickey wasn’t. There were a hundred scenarios where Mickey would have probably taken him up on his offer. This just wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah, okay, man,” Toby said. “We still cool?”

Mickey nodded. “Yeah, man. You need some backup, just give me a call. I’ll help you out. I just don’t want to fuck up my chances of getting out of here early, you know?”

Toby cocked his head. “You got a girl waiting on you, too?” he asked.

Mickey lifted a hand and gave a little rocking motion. “I got a piece on the side. We ain’t anything special, but we fuck around sometimes. Be nice to get back to her,” he said.

Toby’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly at the pronoun, and Mickey knew that he didn’t really buy that. “Cool, man,” he said, instead.

000000000

When Mickey got out, Ian wasn’t waiting for him this time. That was fine, he told himself. He hadn’t been expecting that. He and Gallagher had parted on a bad note when Mickey went in this time. Gallagher hadn’t visited him. Unless Mandy told him, there was no way he even would have known that Mickey was getting out today.

Mandy had skipped school to be there to pick him up in the morning, and Mickey very carefully did not ask her about Ian.

“You going into school today?” he asked.

Mandy quirked an eyebrow at him. “Fuck no,” she scoffed. “Why the fuck would I do that?” 

Mickey rolled his shoulders thoughtfully. “Figured I’d go in and collect some money some assholes owe me for some coke I pushed before I got popped.”

Now both Mandy’s eyebrows went up. “Are you fucking serious?” she asked. “Can’t that fucking wait? We were gonna celebrate you getting out.”

Mickey shrugged. “We can get shitfaced tonight. I don’t want those fucking idiots thinking they can stiff me just cause I ain’t been around awhile.” 

Mandy still looked incredulous. “Do what you want, then,” she said. “But do me a favor and don’t go to any classes. I’ll never hear the end of it if you show up and I don’t.” 

Mickey punched her in the arm, hard. “Do I look fucking stupid to you?” 

She yelped and pinched him hard with her long nails, until he twisted away, cursing as he saw blood welling from the pinch mark. “Yeah, you fucking do,” she shot back.

Mickey rubbed the sting away from the little wound and laughed. He’d fucking missed Mandy. 

00000000000 

He’d also fucking missed sex. He probably should have taken Toby up on his offer, but whatever, he was out now. He could get all the cock he wanted. And he might as well get it from Gallagher. It would save him a fuckload of trouble tracking down some other fag that he was willing to let fuck him. 

Mickey hadn’t had sex with anyone but his right hand in months, so he felt he was perfectly justified in tracking down Gallagher before anything else. He was just eager to scratch an itch, was all. It didn’t _mean_ anything. 

The fucking Army-wannabes were practicing on the infield of the track, and he knew that Gallagher had a boner for that guns and patriotism shit, so he headed over there and leaned over the wire fence as he scanned the faces practicing marching. All of the faces looked nearly identical with their hair tucked up under caps and bodies hidden by formless uniforms. 

Mickey studied each of them closely, but he didn’t see Gallagher’s tall form anywhere. Maybe Gallagher had realized what a waste of time all this shit was. But that didn’t seem like something that he would do. 

Mickey slipped through the break in the fence and started walking along the bleachers, trying to remember what future jarheads he’d sold product to in the past. If he could think of one, he could probably figure out how to intimidate them into spilling some information about Gallagher, if he insinuated the red-head owed him some money. 

As it turned out, he didn’t even have to get that far, as he was passing the bleachers and caught sight of a camouflage uniform underneath the bleachers and some tell-tale moans and cursing. 

Mickey swallowed a bitter little smile and pasted a more natural-looking one on his face. There weren’t likely to be that many people who would take time out from their jerkoff fest to the American military to have a more literal orgasm under the bleachers. One of those bodies was definitely Gallagher. 

“Hey, what’s going on under there?” he called, peaking through the seats. He couldn’t see Gallagher, but he could see Bobby Woo, dick out and dangling. Mickey curled a lip. Bobby Woo was annoying as shit. He couldn’t understand the appeal. 

Mickey didn’t stop to see Bobby and what must be Gallagher scrambling to pull on clothes, trotting past the bleacher’s seating and heading around to the side, pulling himself over the struts and hopping towards where Woo was pulling up his pants, and a familiar tall, pale body and bright hair pulling on a shirt. Mickey’s heart stuttered, but he ignored that.

“Lookie what we got here,” he sang out, swinging easily over the metal supports as he made his way over to the other two boys.

Gallagher paused in pulling on his shirt, and Mickey enjoyed the lingering view of his flat stomach. “Mickey?”

Woo looked a little relieved that it wasn’t a teacher that found them. Mickey internally rolled his eyes. He should have been more nervous, not less. “Thought you were still in Juvie.”

Mickey gave him a tight, closed little smile. “Not anymore,” he said glibly, and then made sure that he wouldn’t be of much use to Gallagher for awhile and landed a kick right to his balls.

Woo went down like a bitch, and Mickey kept smirking. He landed a few more kicks on Woo just for fun. “You having some kind of queer-bo sex under here or something?” he asked, going for Woo’s soft belly and knocking the wind out of him. Gallagher tossed his head back and turned his back to hide his amusement, but Mickey could see it. Apparently, Gallagher wasn’t terribly attached to the annoying Bobby Woo. Good.

“No, no, I swear,” coughed out Woo, but Mickey wasn’t born yesterday, so he simply landed another kick. “Why are you still beating me up?” Woo finally cried. “He was doing it, too,” he said, flinging a hand at Ian expressively.

Mickey shook his head. No loyalty in fuck buddy relationships any more. “You’re the one taking it in the ass, right? So, you’re the one I gotta kick straight.” Mickey saw Ian’s smirk grow just a little bigger at that. He hunkered down and slung a companionable arm around Bobby and gripped his collar, pulling him up enough to look him in the face. “It working?”

“Yes, yes,” Bobby panted, nodding frantically.

“Good,” Mickey said. “Get the fuck out of here.” Mickey let him get up and gave him one final kick to the ass as he watched him go, still scrambling to pull up his boxers and pants. Then he turned to finally properly take in Gallagher. He looked even taller and buffer than he had when Mickey had gone into Juvie, and he hadn’t been exactly short or scrawny at the time.

Mickey thought about the way they’d parted, how ugly it had been. How desperate Gallagher had been and how hurt Mickey had been. How Gallagher had betrayed the one rule that Mickey had laid down.

Gallagher was looking at him with a softness around his eyes and mouth like he was ready to break out a smile. Obviously, he wasn’t holding a grudge. So Mickey decided not to either.

“You got any fuck left in you, or you dump it all in that faggot’s ass?” he asked, cockily. A grin broke out over Gallagher’s face, and Mickey felt his stomach flip a little, because he looked so good.

Ian hopped over one of the partitions, sliding up behind Mickey, the two of them already working on their belts, falling back into their old pattern easily.

Mickey shoved his pants and boxers down over his ass and felt Gallagher slot neatly against his back, following him as Mickey bent over to brace himself on the seats in front of him. Gallagher’s hands slid up Mickey’s arms, closing briefly around his hands where he was hanging onto the bleachers. He gave Mickey’s hands a little squeeze, and though he didn’t say anything, Mickey got the impression that Gallagher wanted him to hold on and not let go.

Mickey let a little shiver go down his spine but readjusted his grip so that he was holding more firmly. Gallagher huffed a laugh in Mickey’s ear. “Good boy,” he murmured, as he slid back to take down his pants. 

Mickey closed his eyes. There was a lot he could forgive, for that. 

000000 

After, Mickey tapped a cigarette out of his pack and decided to avoid going to Juvie again, because _Jesus Christ_ , had he missed that. Gallagher also seemed pretty damned pleased with himself, but Mickey decided to lay it all out on the table, just in case Gallagher got it into his head to angst himself into a fit over the scuffle they'd had before Mickey landed himself in the can.

“Man, that was good,” he sighed, slipping the cigarette between his lips. Then, “Missed ya,” slipped out of his mouth, like it had just been waiting for a moment of inattention on Mickey’s part to escape. Mickey hid an internal wince. Perhaps that had been a bit too candid, even if it was also true.

“You did?” Gallagher sounded like he was surprised.

Mickey decided to go for nonchalant. “Yeah, man,” he said, puffing on his cigarette. Then, because it couldn’t do for Gallagher to get to comfortable, or for him to think that he was the only one getting some tail on the side, “I had to do all the fucking in Juvie.” He turned his head to slant a glance at Gallagher, who was settling down to squat next to Mickey. “Otherwise I’d end up someone’s bitch, right?” 

Gallagher’s face had dropped a little at that, like he was fucking disappointed that Mickey hadn’t saved himself for him while he was behind bars. Like Mickey hadn’t just caught him balls deep in another boy minutes before. The fucking hypocrite, Mickey thought fondly. And he absolutely did not want to reassure Ian that he hadn’t so much as received a proper blowjob in the joint, just to wipe away that tiny tinge of disappointment. He just didn’t. 

Instead, he offered Gallagher his cigarette, a small enough peace offering if you didn’t know how fucking protective Mickey was of his limited stash of smokes, and gave one small concession. “Nice to switch back.”

There was no reason to let Gallagher think that Juvie had changed him completely, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

Mickey didn’t even have to convince Ian to skip the rest of the day with him, he just kind of tagged along as Mickey finished his rounds, collecting cash for his fronted coke, occasionally interfering in a way that almost reminded Mickey of Toby’s incompetence, before Mickey gave up all together and the two of them headed out.

One fuck was definitely not enough to satisfy Mickey after a months-long dry spell. Gallagher was probably feeling less desperate, Mickey thought, since he’d apparently had no troubles getting laid while Mickey was gone, but that didn’t make Mickey more inclined to play to his preferences.

He also didn’t want to seem too desperate either, so before the two of them tracked down one of their old haunts to fuck in, Mickey led them to the park and he and Gallagher climbed the empty bleachers to watch a couple of old fucks play a game of ball.

Mickey lit up a blunt to share with Gallagher, who easily accepted it, and the two shared it back and forth as they watched the game play out on the field beneath them.

“So,” said Gallagher. “You want to pick up again?”

Mickey scoffed. “Nah, Gallagher, that’s why I tracked you down and let you stick your dick in my ass again. ‘Cause I’m sick of your dick.”

Gallagher scratched his nose. “Kinda asking a serious question, here, Mick.”

Mickey took a drag of his blunt. “Kinda a serious answer, fuckhead.”

Ian rolled his eyes, but gave up on that line of questioning. Mickey should have figured that was only because he thought that it was best to conserve his energy for the big fight.

“I’d like that, too, but we have to talk about some stuff first.”

“That’s not happening,” Mickey said flatly.

Ian shrugged. “Well, then, we’re not fucking.”

“Please, like you could last a fucking week, Firecrotch.”

“I could actually.” Ian actually sounded serious. “You were gone a long time, Mickey. I’ve been playing around a lot. Experimenting. I’ve got plenty of people I can stick my dick into if you don’t want to play by the rules. I’ve been talking to a lot of – well, people like me.”

Dominants, is the word he’s looking for and not saying, Mickey thought, because he was still – after all this fucking time – on that kick where Mickey was the fucking submissive one in this relationship. Arrangement. Whatever.

“And I know that what I did before you went into Juvie, that was seriously fucked up,” Ian admitted. “I shouldn’t have done that. That was using our relationship outside of a scene – outside of sex, I mean. When we don’t have that kind of arrangement, and it wasn’t something I should have been doing.”

“Damn right it wasn’t,” Mickey couldn’t help but chime in. “But don’t worry your pretty head about it, Gallagher. I got over that shit months ago.”

“The point is,” Ian said firmly, “that we kind of had no idea what we were doing a couple of months ago, and I have a better idea now.”

“Because of all the subby twinks you’ve been fucking,” Mickey clarified.

A sly grin crossed Ian’s face. “They’re not twinks. You’d be surprised how many old guys like to be tied up and bossed around.”

Mickey scowled. “Too much fucking information, Gallagher.”

“You asked.”

Mickey wasn’t sure he had, actually. “Besides, I don’t go in for that bondage shit, anyway.”

Gallagher shot a significant look at Mickey’s tattooed fingers. “Oh, no? Kinda seemed like you were into it.”

Mickey considered that. “I still say nah, man.”

“Mickey, c’mon.”

Mickey dug the heel of his palm into his eye, considering what he was about to say. “It wasn’t about not being able to move, dipshit” he finally said. “It was about you not wanting me to move. And giving that to you. Fucking rope or fluffy handcuffs or whatever would have fucked the whole point.”

Fuck, laid out like that, maybe Mickey was fucking submissive. That was an unpleasant thought.

Well, let Gallagher think he’d figured that shit out months ago and just roll with it.

“That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, Mickey. Things you like and things that you don’t like. Same for me. Negotiation. It’s important, and we’re not having sex without it.”

“You and you’re shitty ultimatums,” Mickey huffed. “Fine. How do we do this shit?”

Ian shrugged. “Okay, let’s start simple.” He pulled out his backpack and dug out a purple notebook. Half of the cover had been torn off, but on the other half, in Gallagher’s neat printing, was written Algebra III. He flipped it to a clean page in the back and neatly split the page in thirds with two quick lines. On the top of each column, he wrote “green” “yellow” and “red.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Mickey asked.

“Safewords,” Ian explained. “Red means stop, yellow means slow down or check in, and green means good to go. We’re gonna talk about some of the stuff we definitely want to do,” he pointed at the green column, “things that we’re interested in but not sure about,” he pointed to the yellow column, “and stuff that’s a definite no for one or both of us,” and here he pointed to the red. “It has to be unanimous to go in the green column. If either of us is unsure or a definite no, even if the other is on board, we go with the lowest rating.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“So, for me, in the red, it’s stuff like permanent harm.” Ian dutifully wrote it down. “And for you, physical restraints.”

Mickey cracked his neck. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do them, just that I don’t like the idea,” he protested, since “restraints” sounded like a way more pussy copout than “permanent harm.”

“That’s the point of the list, Mickey. It’s sex. It’s supposed to feel good, not something you force yourself to endure.”

Mickey sucked on his teeth, and dropped his eyes. “Then, pain. I don’t want any kind of pain, ever. Not just, like, permanent stuff. Any of it.”

Mickey thought that Ian would protest that, ask about various things that he’d tried over the summer – things that he had to have tried, if he was playing around with people that liked that sort of shit, but Ian just nodded and wrote it down.

“Not gonna ask me why?”

“Again, not the point of this. It doesn’t matter why you don’t want to do something. You say no, it goes on the list. I could guess anyway. Pain’s too closely linked with punishment for you, and you don’t want to be punished.”

No, he just wanted to be petted and pampered like a prize show dog on its best behavior. Speaking of…

“You might as well put down dirty talk, or whatever, in green. We know we both like that.”

“Praise, not dirty talk. I’d even think that dirty talk is in the red for you,” Ian said bluntly.

Mickey scowled. He disliked it being put like that, even if it was undeniably true. Ian correctly read his silence and put “praise” and “dirty talk” in their respective columns.

“Anything you’re interested in trying?” Ian asked. “Something you’ve been thinking about?”

Mickey considered that. He’d thought about sex with Gallagher a lot over the past few months. There had been one or two moments where it had gotten a little less than vanilla. “Toys,” he admitted, because there were times he just wanted something up his ass that was even bigger than Gallagher, as nice as his dick was.

Gallagher raised an eyebrow. “Pretty broad range there, Mickey.”

Mickey scowled. He didn’t like having to say this shit out load. “I don’t know, fucktard. Toys. Things that go up my ass.”

“You never try that before?”

Mickey gave him a baleful look. Ian held up his hands in surrender. “Just asking, man. You like having your ass played with. Figured you might have tried a few things.”

Not in his fucking house. “Just my fingers. But it’s not always…enough.”

Ian was giving him a heated look now, but wrote it down in the green column. “Okay, we’re trying that. You said you liked the idea of obeying me, with keeping your hands in place. How far do you want to take that?” And now Ian had turned to face him, looking at Mickey head on. And this was the part that made Mickey fucking uncomfortable. He was gay, it was fine to want things up his ass. But the whole obedience thing…it really did make him sound fucking submissive, and that wasn’t actually something that Mickey wanted to be.

Ian seemed content to wait him out, but his gaze was implacable. “It’s not something to be ashamed of,” he said quietly. “If it makes you feel good.”

Mickey blew out a breath. “I don’t know, man, it’s like…there would be things I’d be okay with. Like the,” he flexed his hands in a show of what he meant. “That was okay.” More than okay. He’d felt so good knowing that he was doing what Ian wanted him to do. That he was making Ian pleased.

“But I don’t know if I’m okay with you just having carte fucking blanche to tell me whatever.”

“What are you afraid I’ll tell you to do?”

“I’m not fucking afraid of anything.”

“You are, or you wouldn’t have reservations.” Mickey glared. “Mickey, you’re in control here. You set the parameters. If you’re okay with it in some situations, and not others, that’s fine. If you’re okay with it one day, and not the next, that’s fine. If you’re okay with it right up until you’re not, then you say stop and if fucking stops. That’s what the safeword’s for.”

Mickey didn’t feel particularly in control. He took a deep drag of the blunt, trying to calm his nerves. He had a feeling the weed had gone a long way in keeping this conversation running as smoothly as it had been.

“It’s more about you,” he finally said. “About making sure you’re…happy.” God, that was gay.  
“And that I’m taking care of you. And less about me. And I don’t want…You can’t fucking use it to make me humiliate myself for you, because I won’t fucking do that.” Mickey took another deep drag of the blunt, feeling exposed.

Ian was looking at him with eyes that were all fucking soft, and Mickey wanted to stab him. He thrust the blunt at Gallagher to finish off.

Gallagher accepted the blunt with his left, and added “humiliation” to the red column and “obedience (provisional)” to the green.

“Can we be done now?” Mickey asked, not looking at Gallagher, and then wanted to fucking slap himself for feeling the need to ask permission instead of just demanding it.

Thankfully, Gallagher flipped the book shut. “It’s a good start,” he said amiably. “Want to go somewhere and try it out?”

Mickey gave a sigh of relief. Fucking finally.

000000

By the time they make it to Mickey’s old gun range, Mickey’s all but vibrating out of his skin for a second go-around. He needed something more substantial than the quick fuck under the bleachers.

The place was well kept-up, for a shithole, and Mickey could see some of the targets he set up had been changed. He figured Gallagher must have been using it for target shooting. Probably had Mandy loan him a piece.

Mickey didn’t precisely bound over to the piece-of-shit couch where they usually fucked, but he did walk pretty damn quickly. He was already fumbling for his belt when Gallagher put his hand on his wrist.

“Slow down,” Gallagher said, and it was fucking alright for him to sound so calm, he wasn’t the one who was seeing the dam break after a months-long dry season. Mickey raised an eyebrow at him, but Gallagher just looked serene. “Me first.”

Mickey stared. Gallagher didn’t move. Then he quirked an eyebrow at Mickey and looked down at his uniform.

“You want me to…?” This was new.

“Slowly.”

Getting completely naked was a luxury for them, and one they could rarely afford. Here was one of the places it was possible, but it was also hardly behind a locked door. Mickey felt his pulse jump. His gaze swept over Ian, and yeah, the kid had definitely put on even more muscle while Mickey had been away. The shirt he was wearing showed it off nicely.

Ian didn’t push, didn’t repeat the order, and Mickey could see now that that’s what it was. He just stood there, patient, and looking at Mickey with a slight tilt to his head and a smile just barely tugging at his lips. Almost challenging.

Mickey swallowed and straightened his shoulders. It was fucking clothes. He’d tugged them off Gallagher during sex before. He wasn’t sure why this was so different, except that it so obviously was.

He stepped forward, into Gallagher’s space. Then again, until their chests were very nearly brushing.

He skimmed his hands down Gallagher’s tight t-shirt, soft and faded from too many washes, looking a bit stained around the collar and pits from running around in the hot sun on too many occasions, but tight across Gallagher’s chest. When he reached the hem, he started the trip back up Ian’s body, letting his thumbs hook the hem and dragging it up his body.

There was definitely definition that hadn’t been there when Mickey had gone into Juvie. He didn’t stop to gawk, however, pulling the shirt up and over Ian’s head, and pulling it down his arms.

“Fold it nicely,” said Ian. “I only have so many.”

Mickey looked at Ian suspiciously, because that smacked of a kind of submission he definitely wasn’t interested in. Ian just looked at him serenely, with just a glint of mischief in his eyes. He didn’t think Mickey was going to do it. He thought Mickey was, what, going to toss his shitty shirt on the ground?

Instead, Mickey folded the shirt in quick motions, like they did in the fancy department stores -- sleeves in, and then in half, leaving it a neat little square. And then, because there was no where else to put it, and because fuck Gallagher anyway, he tossed it on the ground.

Ian huffed a laugh, but didn’t comment, so Mickey went for his belt, using it as a handle to tug Gallagher closer, because he wanted him close at that moment. And because he was doing this properly, he didn’t just unbuckle the thing, but undid it, and then tugged slowly at one end until it was sliding through the belt loops of Ian’s Army pants with a soft whir. He wound the belt neatly into a coil, and then he tossed the belt with the shirt and put his fingers on the pants button. He looked up at Ian, and saw he still looked amused, but there was something else there, too, burning lightly behind his eyes.

Mickey faltered. He hadn’t really been thinking of this as sexy, as something he could do in a sexy way. It felt more like a pissing contest to him. But Gallagher’s dick was twitching in his pants, and he was obviously getting something out of even the half-assed job that Mickey was doing at undressing him.

Mickey cleared his throat, feeling unaccountably nervous. Gallagher didn’t rush him, just stood there, looking expectant and warm.

He sucked a corner of his lip into his mouth and looked Gallagher over consideringly. Then, back slightly stiff, ready to come up swinging if Gallagher so much as made a smart mouth comment, Mickey sank to his knees. He kept his eyes down, glued to Gallagher’s boots, the neatly tied laces. He reached for them, tugging at the knots a little roughly, feeling his cheeks heat. His fingers weren’t as sure as they should have been for something so simple.

Mickey flinched when Ian’s hands entered his hair, but didn’t stop at his task, finishing loosening the laces on one shoe and moving onto the other. He pulled at the heel of the first shoe, and Ian obediently lifted his foot for Mickey to tug it off, and then again for the other. Ian’s hand was moving rhythmically through his hair now, gently, almost reverently, and Mickey’s chest tightened because it was so fucking perfect.

Mickey rolled down Ian’s socks, still slightly damp from his earlier exertions, and neatly rolled them into balls and stuck them in the boots. Ian’s feet didn’t exactly smell like roses, and they had imprints in them still from the fabric of the socks, some lint lingering between his toes, and Mickey was struck by how utterly ridiculous this must all look from an outside perspective. His shoulders tensed.

“Hey now, you’re okay,” said Ian softly, his hands flowing from Mickey’s hair to his shoulders, stroking him through his shirt. “You’re doing perfect.”

Mickey hunched his shoulders, pulling them up around his burning ears.

“Mickey,” Ian said softly. “Humiliation is a red for you. If you feel like I’m crossing the line, you need to say so. I’m serious.”

Mickey didn’t feel humiliated, or at least not like Ian was humiliating him. Maybe that he was humiliating himself a little bit. Mostly, he just felt dumb, like he didn’t know how to do this right, how to make it good for Ian. Mickey didn’t feel like he was doing well, and despite the pseudo massage, his shoulders remained tense.

Ian sighed. “Yellow,” he said.

Mickey looked up in alarm. “What? Why?” God, they hadn’t even gotten naked yet, and Mickey was doing so badly at this that Gallagher had put a stop to it already?

Ian crouched down in front of Mickey and took his face in his big hands. “I’m calling yellow. It’s not stop, remember? Just a pause. Not because of anything you’re doing wrong. I just said you’re being perfect, didn’t I?”

Mickey jerked his face away. “Then what’s the problem?”

Gallagher dropped his hands, but only to close his fingers around Mickey’s thighs instead. “You were enjoying this, for a moment. You were getting into your headspace, I could practically see it. Then you stopped. What happened?”

“I--” Mickey stuttered, because Milkovich’s are hardly eloquent at the best of times. “I look goddamned stupid,” he finally admitted.

“No,” Gallagher said calmly.

Mickey raised an eyebrow. “No? On my knees like some bitch for you, I don’t look at all stupid?”

“No, you don’t,” Gallagher said, still calm. “You got on your knees for me because you wanted to, and you looked fucking beautiful doing it. If you could see yourself, you’d never think that you looked stupid.”

Mickey stared at him. “We’re not…” he made a vague punch-fucking gesture. “You don’t have to say that shit right now.”

Gallagher smiled. “I’m saying it because it’s true.” His hands started to make small circles on Mickey’s thighs, soothing and a touch sexual at the same time. “You’re so strong Mickey. I could never make you go on your knees. I could never force that. It’s your choice, and it took my breath away to see it. So fucking perfect.”

Mickey’s breath hitched slightly.

“You don’t need to worry about me thinking anything like that, okay? I only want to take the things that you give me. And everything you give me is beautiful.”

Mickey still felt heat in his face in his ears, but it didn’t carry that humiliating sting anymore. Ian was smiling at him now. “There you are. God, you’re pretty like this. You have no idea.”

Pretty was a word Mickey was sure he should be objecting to, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a breathy little sigh.

“You were doing so well with me before, Mickey. We’re almost there,” said Ian, pulling on his waistband. “Ready to see the rest of me?”

Mickey was.

Ian smiled at him, standing back up, putting his hands back in Mickey’s hair. “Good boy.”

The words sent a shiver down his spine. He wanted to be good for Ian. He reached up, skimming his hands down Ian’s flat stomach, making it down to the pants button a with a little more intent. He thumbed the brass button, and chanced a look up at Ian, who was looking...so fucking pleased. Heat began to pool in Mickey’s belly.

Using one hand, he pulled at that top of Gallagher’s pants until the button slid out of the hole with a pop, and then flipped up the tag to Gallagher’s zipper, dragging it down slowly, taking in each individual rasp of the metal teeth, until it hit the bottom, revealing a pair of faded blue and white striped boxers.

Mickey grasped the sides of Ian’s pants, dragging them down slowly, over his hips, past his knees, to his feet. Ian stepped out, and Mickey took the pants, folding them half, and then quickly into neat thirds, before putting them with the rest of Ian’s clothes.

That just left the boxers. Mickey pulled them down to, watching in fascination as Ian’s cock, still half hard bobbed free from the elastic waistband. It perked up a little more under Mickey’s gaze. Mickey remembered what it had felt like to have that cock in his mouth, the scent of Ian so strong there, and very much wanted that again.

Mickey folded the boxers, because in for a penny, in for a pound, and placed them with the rest of Ian’s clothes, then looked up at Ian, completely naked while Mickey was still wearing everything down to his overshirt. He had the feeling that this was supposed to be the other way around, that Ian was the one in a position of vulnerability here, for all that Mickey was on his knees, but it also felt fucking amazing to get his first real look at Ian in what felt like a very long time.

Ian chuckled, stroking the short hairs behind Mickey’s ears. “You can suck me later, if you want. Now, I want you again.”

Ian pulled Mickey up, and Mickey felt a little pang of disappointment, because didn’t Ian say he was beautiful on his knees? But he couldn’t think too long on that, because Ian was pulling off his shirt, then his tank top, and Mickey toed off his shoes so that Ian could get to his pants, all in much quicker succession than Mickey had stripped Ian.

Ian pulled Mickey over to the couch. “You want to try something for me?” he asked.

Mickey held his breath. New things weren’t always good. Not even most of the time.

Ian quirked an eyebrow at him. “You can say no.”

Mickey shook his head, quickly.

Ian wrapped his long fingers around Mickey’s wrists, guiding him until Mickey was on his back on the couch, and Ian kneeling over him, a position that was so familiar even after a year that Mickey nearly didn’t mind the broken spring digging into his back again. Ian kept his hands on Mickey’s wrists, shifting his grip as he moved Mickey’s arms up above his head, until they were situated on the shredded armrest.

“Do you think that you can keep them there by yourself?” Ian asked. “Can you not move them at all for me?”

Mickey wondered how ridiculous this looked, how stupid Ian thought it looked with nothing to tie his hands there. He tried not to think too much about it and crossed his wrists, stretching his arms high above his head, making his back arch just a little.

Ian let out a breathy little sigh. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Just like that.” And then he took advantage of the slight push out of Mickey’s chest to latch his mouth around one of Mickey’s nipples.

Mickey felt it like there was a direct connect from his nipples to his cock, his whole body giving a light jerk under the sensation. Ian kept sucking, the vacuum of his mouth just this side of painful, like getting a hickey, but arousing, too. Mickey tried not to squirm, imagined being held in place by his immobile arms and trying to keep his breathing steady.

Ian looked up at him from where he was latched onto his chest, his eyes sparking with a little bit of mischief, before lifting his head and starting his ministrations on Mickey's other nipple.

Mickey shuddered. He hadn't paid his nipples much attention before this moment. They existed on his body and had no purpose other than to break up the expanse of pale flesh on his chest. He'd never played with them while jerking off, though clearly he should have. He gave a whimper as Ian applied the same vacuum-type suction to his right nipple as he had to the left.

Ian pulled back just enough to blow against Mickey's nipples and he watched in fascination as they peaked before his eyes, becoming hard little nubs.

Ian leaned back in satisfaction, surveying Mickey's body laid out before him. "You make a very pretty picture, Mickey, with your nipples like that, and your hands right where I left them." Ian ran his fingernails lightly over Mickey's peaked nipples. It didn't hurt, but did make Mickey give another aborted whole-body jerk from the tickling sensation.

Ian's eyes dropped lower, to where Mickey's cock was making an impressive bid for attention.

"You know," Ian said thoughtfully, "I met a lot of guys this summer while you were away. There was this one guy, he could come without me touching his cock at all. Just on my dick."

Mickey doesn't particularly like Gallagher reminiscing about his past fucks while they're doing it, but his cock gives an interested jerk at the idea of being able to come just from Ian fucking him. He's never done that before.

"Something to think about for later," Gallagher concedes, and finally digs in the cushions for the lube they stash there. Mickey wonders briefly if Ian brought any of his old farts here to fuck -- slumming it -- or if the lube is old, from the days they were making regular use of this place. “Today, you’re going to be good for me in a different way. I’ll let you come, don’t worry about that.”

Mickey hadn’t been worried about it until Ian said that.

“But you’re going to be good and hold off until I tell you you can, alright?”

They’ve played this game before, but there’s a new weight to it now, with Mickey’s hands stretched up above his head and so recently having had a conversation about obeying. His cock makes another interested bid towards his stomach and he nods, though he’s not sure how he’s supposed to pull it off. Mickey’s not big on self-denial.

Ian pours lube over his fingers and starts to work Mickey open. He’s precise in his stroking and his fingers immediately find Mickey’s prostate and start to rub it in leisurely circles. Mickey lets out a soft sigh and turns his head to hide it in his arm. Having his arms above his head like this is more revealing than he thought it would be.

“Shy boy,” Ian murmurs, and Mickey feels a flush spread across his cheeks, but he only hides his face more determinedly.

Ian doesn’t seem to mind, simply puts another finger in Mickey and kisses his way down Mickey’s hairless stomach to his cock, now fully hard and drooling a little from the stimulation. “No coming,” he reminds Mickey, and then his mouth is around Mickey’s cock.

It’s not the first time that Mickey’s been in another boy’s mouth, not the first time he’s been in Ian’s mouth, but Mickey nearly bucks Ian off with how hard his hips try to come off the couch. Ian pays him no mind, merely using the hand that isn’t getting Mickey ready to push down on his hip as he swallows as much of Mickey as he can get into his mouth. It’s not as much as Mickey can do with Ian’s cock, but it’s still quite a lot. And Ian has a strange rhythm going, circling softly with his fingers around Mickey’s prostate, then every once in awhile, rewarding him with a firm stroke that makes Mickey’s eyes cross, while at the same time bobbing up and down on Mickey’s cock, except times when he sucks like a hoover at the tip. The hard strokes and the strong suction never come at the same time, and it’s driving Mickey crazy trying to anticipate.

It’s inevitable that Mickey’s orgasm starts to build. He thinks of everything he can to stave it off. Dead puppies. Karen Jackson’s tits. Mandy fucking Lip. But the stimulation is too much and he has to thrash his head and hips to get Ian’s mouth off of him before he spoils it all.

Ian pulls off, softly stroking Mickey’s hip with his fingers until Mickey is able to calm his breathing.

“You’re ready,” Ian confirms, as he pulls his fingers out of Mickey’s ass and puts on a condom. “But same rules, Mickey. You don’t get to come until I say.”

Mickey doesn’t even know how to answer that. He wants to come so bad he can taste it, but he also wants to please Ian, so he simply lets out a low moan as Ian lifts one of Mickey’s legs for leverage and pushes inside him.

Ian’s thrusts are slow and measured. He’s gotten a lot more stamina while Mickey was away, maybe a result from banging all the geriatrics hopped on the little blue pill. Either way, it’s making Mickey insane, each hit on his prostate, Ian’s strong hand gripping his thigh and leaving a mark there in a place that no one except for Ian will ever see.

And Ian’s voice in his ear.

“There’s so much I want to do with you, beautiful boy,” Ian murmurs. “Have you in every position. Have you on your knees. Teach you all the tricks to make me good and hard for you, show you how good you make me feel. Maybe get you some ribbons for your hands. Not to hold you there. I know that my good boy doesn’t need to be tied down. But something to decorate you. Look so pretty on your pale skin.”

Mickey’s fingers jerk, desperate for his cock, but Ian pays them no mind, and they remain obediently above Mickey’s head. He’s not that far gone.

“Does my pretty boy like that idea?” Ian croons. “Nod yes for me, Mickey.”

Mickey’s head moves up and down almost without input from his brain.

Ian moves like a machine, and his hand wraps around Mickey’s dick, jerking him in the exact way he likes, a little too hard with a twist at the end. Mickey whines high in his throat, wrapping his leg around Ian’s back, and thinks _“Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come,”_ in an endless loop in his mind, until Ian voice in his ear says, _“Now,”_ in an insistent tone, and before Mickey can register it properly, he’s spilling himself over Ian’s hand.

00000000

Mickey’s not sure whether or not he’s awake for the next few minutes. He comes, and Ian speeds up until he finishes himself, and Mickey is there for it, but he’s also very far away. He only dimly feels Ian take his wrists and bring them down from where they stayed, obedient and out of the way above his head, rubbing Mickey’s shoulders absently, even though they don’t hurt.

Ian stays on top of him, his weight a reassurance, as he rubs Mickey’s arms and neck, fingers straying into the hair at his nape and massaging there gently as Mickey floats.

Next time, Mickey thinks, ribbons.

“I want to come on your cock,” Mickey blurts, not sure why he says it other than he feels really good right now, and he really does want to come on Ian’s cock. “Like them.”

Ian smiles at him, his fingers inching deeper into Mickey’s hairline. “I know a way to make it easier, if you want.”

Yes. Mickey wants.

“Don’t jerk off between now and the next time we fuck. The more desperate you are, the easier it’ll be.”

Mickey mulls this. He and Ian have sex a lot, but it’s not every day. He definitely jerks it at least once a day.

“What’ll you do to me if I do?”

“Do you want me to do something?”

“No,” Mickey replies, a little too swiftly. “You couldn’t anyway.”

“Then I guess you’ll do it because I said so, and you want to be a good boy for me.”

Mickey shudders, thrusting his spent cock uselessly against Ian’s thigh. He’s not ready for another round - he may never get it up again, his cock feels so satisfied.

“Yeah. Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at poemjunkie.tumblr.com.
> 
> Thanks to skinnycat77 and michiru2042 for the beta from chapter 3 on. Any mistakes prior to that are mine alone.


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